Class certification was denied -- again -- in litigation brought by plaintiffs who allege a drug maker misstated the likelihood of withdrawal symptoms in use of a prescription medication. See Saavedra v. Eli Lilly & Co., No. 12-09366 (C.D. Calif., 7/21/15).

Plaintiffs originally moved to certify four classes under the state consumer fraud acts of Missouri, New York, Massachusetts and California. The court rejected those proposed classes, noting plaintiffs' "unusual" theory of injury and damages. Plaintiffs did not allege they suffered the alleged withdrawal effects, or that they were injured by being overcharged. They asserted instead that they were harmed because they received a product that had less value than the class expected it to have. They got a product with less utility, defined as the benefit consumers believe they will get by using the product. This flawed model looked only to the demand side of the market because it focused on a refund tied to consumers out of pocket costs; yet, the prescription drug market is quintessentially inefficient and the relationship between price and value is "severed." In turn, causation and injury could not be shown on a class-wide basis, and common issues did not predominate.

Plaintiffs tried again, with a proposal to certify New York and Massachusetts classes. This effort, too, raised serious issue of predominance. Plaintiffs claimed to seek only the minimum statutory damages provided under the laws of the two states, Thus, they sought to avoid the problems of their original damages model. But plaintiffs still had to show that each class member was injured as a result of defendant's alleged misleading act -- that the act caused the loss. Plaintiffs could only show that harm by alleging the acts caused them to pay the wrong price, too much, a price premium, for the drug; this is either a variant on the rejected fraud-on-the-market theory or a theory that calls for a subjective individual inquiry into what each class member got and paid for. Because the prescription drug market is not efficient (for example, it is complicated by the role of insurance and co-payments), plaintiffs cannot rely on price to show injury in this way. Pricing affected different class members to varying degrees because of different health insurance and the different terms of benefits that can accompany it. Even if, under the new theory, plaintiffs did not need to quantify the subjective injury each felt to quantify damages, that didn't change the fact that plaintiffs would need to show that same thing to establish causation and fact of injury. This could not be done on a class-wide basis.

Here, the class period spanned a decade and included class members who paid different prices for the drug and had different insurance. Different class members would have been affected to different degrees. And use of a defendant's internal marketing or pricing documents wouldn't bridge the gap: the suggestion that a lower level of withdrawal symptoms might lead some consumers to pay more for a drug does not prove that a premium was actually charged, that the price charged was in excess of the drug's true value, or that prices negotiated with third-party payers were directly and fully passed on to the class.

The House Judiciary Committee recently approved a proposed bill that would modify class certification standards under Fed. R. Civ. P. 23. H.R. 1927, the 2015 Fairness in Class Action Litigation Act, is another attempt to force courts to require that the party seeking to maintain a class action affirmatively demonstrate through admissible evidentiary proof that each proposed class member suffered an injury of the same type and extent as the injury of the named class representatives. The bill defines "injury" as the alleged impact of the defendant's actions on the plaintiff's body or property.

The committee voted 15-10 to approve an amendment, introduced by Committee Chairman Robert W. Goodlatte (R-Va.), to exempt plaintiffs seeking only declaratory or injunctive relief, as a means to carve out most civil rights plaintiffs, from the bill's proposed requirement. The amended bill would apply only to proposed classes seeking monetary relief for personal injury or economic loss. The Committee then voted 15-10 to send H.R. 1927 to the full House for consideration.

This type of bill is generally is aimed at the so-called no injury class actions in which not all of the class members are injured, sometimes even most of the class is not injured -- for example purchasers of a consumer product with an alleged design defect that has not manifested itself in most of the units. Such classes create issues for defendants, plaintiffs, and the courts. The bill's sponsors argue that when classes are certified that include members who do not have the same type and scope of injury as the class representatives, those members siphon off limited compensatory resources. Classes including uninjured parties can also artificially inflate the size of the class to command a larger settlement value.

A Florida appeals court recently decertified a class action with an unusual theory: a car maker who allegedly used headlights that can be too easily stolen in its luxury vehicles. See Porsche Cars v. Peter Diamond, et al., No. 3D12-2829 3d DCA Fla. 6/12/14). One wonders why and how theft of auto parts is not the responsibility of the thief, but perhaps we digress.

This case focuses on Porsche’s High Intensity Discharge Headlights. The Headlights are an upscale amenity in the luxury car market. The intense blue-white light given by the Headlights is closer to natural daylight than the yellowish light of regular headlights. The Headlights provide better nighttime visibility than older types of headlights. Since model year 2000, the Headlights have been offered as standard or optional equipment across the Porsche vehicle line. The Headlights were mounted on modules that were slid into a plastic tray in the fender and clamped in place. This mounting made the Headlights less expensive to install and repair. Plaintiffs alleged it made them "easier" to steal.

In this proposed class action, the class representatives asserted unfair trade practices and unjust enrichment claims. They alleged the defendant distributed a product highly susceptible to theft without taking any remedial steps. Specifically, the defendant allegedly failed to “notify owners of the flaw and potential risk of theft so they could take their own precautions,” to “offer replacement lights at reduced costs,” and to “work with law enforcement agencies to assist in the prevention of the theft of their headlights.” This, the representatives members allege, violated the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act (“FDUTPA”). There was an unjust enrichment claim, and the plaintiffs also alleged that the defendant distributor could have redesigned the vehicles in
various ways, even though a car distributor does not design or manufacture vehicles.

The opinion did not reach the issue of whether such a factual theory of damages is viable (it would have been nice to see a blow struck for common sense). But the decision focused on the legal issues raised by the class action. The trial court certified the case as a rule 1.220(b)(3) class action. In a (b)(3) class action, common issues must predominate over individual issues. Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.220(b)(3). Common issues predominate when, considering both the rights and duties of the class members, the proof offered by the class representatives will necessarily prove or disprove the cases of the absent class members. The class representative’s case must not merely raise a common question, but that proof of the class representative’s case must also answer the question.

FDUTPA declares unlawful unfair methods of competition, unconscionable acts or practices, and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in the conduct of any trade or commerce. The term “unfair” is
not defined in FDUTPA. Here, the trial judge defined unfair trade practice as one that “offends established policy” and “is immoral, unethical, oppressive, unscrupulous or substantially injurious to customers.” This definition derives from a 1964 Federal Trade Commission policy statement. In 1980, however, the Federal Trade Commission updated its definition of unfair trade practice. The new definition established a three-pronged test for “unfairness,” which requires that the injury to the consumer:
(1) must be substantial;
(2) must not be outweighed by any countervailing benefits to consumers or competition that the practice produces; and
(3) must be an injury that consumers themselves could not reasonably have avoided.

The court held that Florida law adopted the definition of unfairness contained in the 1980 Policy Statement. The state legislature provided that violations of FDUTPA include violations of the standards of unfairness and deception set forth and interpreted by the Federal Trade Commission or the federal courts. The Florida Legislature amended FDUTPA in 1983, 2001, 2006, and 2013, for the specific purpose of adding to Florida Law the latest interpretations by the Federal Trade Commission or federal courts that occurred since the last statutory amendment. In light of this history, the 1980 Policy Statement is clearly one of the “standards of unfairness” interpreted by the Federal Trade Commission and federal courts.

The trial court erroneously adopted the premise that the distributor’s actions could be found to be an unfair trade practice regardless of whether class members knew and could have avoided the risk of the Headlight thefts. From this premise, it reasoned “an individual class member’s pre-purchase knowledge of the potential risk of theft was not relevant to the Plaintiff’s FDUTPA claim.” Since the premise was wrong, so was the conclusion. The individual class member’s knowledge of the risk of Headlight theft bears on whether the practice was unfair because it impacts whether the consumer could reasonably avoid the risk. Given the nature of the claim in this case—that the Headlights functioned great as headlights but were too susceptible to theft—an individual class members knowledge of the risk of theft goes to the heart of his or her claim.

To prove an unfair trade practice, the class must prove that the injury caused by the allegedly unfair trade practice could not have been reasonably avoided by the consumers. The idea behind the reasonably avoidable inquiry is that free and informed consumer choice is the first and best
regulator of the marketplace: consumers may act to avoid injury before it occurs if they have reason to anticipate the impending harm and the means to avoid it, or they may seek to mitigate the damage afterward if they are aware of potential avenues toward that end. A jury might well find that a consumer who knew the Headlights were targeted by thieves had avenues available to reasonably avoid the risk. This is particularly true where, as here, the alleged problem of theft was greater in some geographic locations than others. How about consumers park in only safe areas, install alarm systems extending to the mounting module, or, if these options were not acceptable, decline to purchase or lease a Porsche with the Headlights? Given the theory of this case, the knowledge of some class members that the Headlights were prone to theft could not be ignored.

Similarly, the determination of unjust enrichment would turn on individual facts. A court would be hard pressed to conclude that a distributor was unjustly enriched when class members with the sophistication and knowledge of the product continued to seek out the Headlights even when they knew of the thefts.

The court concluded that when the individual knowledge and experience of the consumer is an
important element of the cause of action and its defense, there can be no class-wide proof that injury was not reasonably avoidable.

Where recognized, medical monitoring plaintiffs typically must prove:
1. exposure greater than normal background levels;
2. to a proven hazardous substance;
3. caused by the defendant's negligence;
4. as a proximate result of the exposure, plaintiff has a significantly increased risk of contracting a serious latent disease;
5. a monitoring procedure exists that makes the early detection of the disease possible;
6. the prescribed monitoring regime is different from that normally recommended in the absence of the exposure; and
7. the prescribed monitoring regime is reasonably necessary according to contemporary scientific principles.

The plaintiffs in this case filed a putative class action filed in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, invoking federal diversity jurisdiction under the special jurisdictional provisions of the Class Action Fairness Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d)(2). Their complaint alleged that the defendant, Raytheon Company, endangered the health of the plaintiffs and others similarly situated by negligently exposing them to beryllium used in the manufacturing process at its plant in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Beryllium is a useful but potentially hazardous substance, and sufficient exposure to it is a risk factor for a malady known as Chronic Beryllium Disease (CBD). This malady is characterized by inflammation and scarring of lung tissue. Although there is no known cure for CBD, early detection and treatment can ameliorate its impact. The pathogenesis of CBD may begin with beryllium sensitization (BeS). Even though BeS is regarded as an abnormal medical finding, it can be asymptomatic and is typically not treated. Plaintiffs argued that persons with BeS should receive periodic clinical screenings to detect actual disease onset because those persons who are diagnosed with BeS are allegedly at a risk of developing CBD during their lifetimes.

The plaintiffs sought to represent two proposed classes. One comprised all persons who worked at the Waltham plant for at least one month prior to 1997. The other comprised all persons who lived with members of the first class and thus were subject to alleged take-home beryllium exposure. Persons already diagnosed as having CBD were excluded from both proposed classes. Following extensive pretrial discovery and work devoted to a narrowing of the issues, the district court granted summary judgment in favor of Raytheon. See Genereux v. Hardric Labs., Inc., 950 F.Supp.2d 329, 341 (D. Mass. 2013). An appeal ensued.

The Court of Appeals noted that the cornerstone of an action for medical monitoring under Massachusetts law is the decision in Donovan v. Philip Morris USA, Inc., 914 N.E.2d 891 (Mass. 2009). There, the court ruled that the cost of medical monitoring may be recoverable in a tort suit under Massachusetts law under certain circumstances. The First Circuit read the Donovan decision as tethering its holding to a doctrinal mooring: a combination of a defendant's alleged failure to meet an appropriate standard of care, a clear causal connection between that failure and the plaintiffs' alleged injuries, and resulting damages. To identify the injury in the absence of evidence that a plaintiff actually has a full-blown disease, the court demanded a showing that some subcellular or other physiological change has put plaintiffs at increased risk. The court noted that under the unique cause of action recognized in Donovan, increased epidemiological risk of illness caused by exposure, unaccompanied by some subcellular or other physiological change, is not enough to permit recovery in tort.

Here, the summary judgment record disclosed no evidence that any plaintiff — named or unnamed, employee class or take-home class — had as yet developed BeS. This gap in the proof was fatal to the plaintiffs' principal theory of liability. The plaintiffs had not carried their burden that under Massachusetts law that defines actionable injury in the medical monitoring milieu in terms of subcellular or other physiological change; the record revealed no significantly probative evidence of such an injury here.

In the alternative, the plaintiffs argued that the Massachusetts high court had speculated about whether a cause of action for medical monitoring might ever exist when no subclinical changes had occurred. The trial court concluded that plaintiffs hadn't preserved a claim under this alternative theory. The court of appeals agreed. In complex cases, considerations of both fairness and efficiency dictate that a trial judge use his best efforts to winnow and clarify the issues.Plaintiffs' counsel had multiple opportunities to expound a new theory of the case that encompassed this issue. A status conference transcript where the issue was raised was transparently clear: the plaintiffs told the court that they were not pursuing a theory based on any question that the SJC had allegedly left for another day.

Just the facts on this one, as my firm is involved for defendants in such actions, but word comes that New York's highest court has joined the trend of state courts rejecting medical monitoring. See Caronia v. Philip Morris USA, Inc., No. 227 (N.Y., 12/17/13).

Plaintiffs, healthy smokers, sought medical monitoring in the form of low dose CT scans allegedly necessitated by their increased risk of future disease. The federal court certified the issue of medical monitoring to the state court, specifically, (1) under New York Law, may a current or former longtime heavy smoker who has not been diagnosed with a smoking-related disease, and
who is not under investigation by a physician for such a suspected disease, pursue an independent equitable cause of action for medical monitoring for such a disease?
(2) If New York recognizes such an independent cause of action for medical monitoring, what are the elements of that cause of action? What is the applicable statute of limitations, and when does that cause of action accrue?

The state court observed that while there is certainly an important health interest in fostering access to medical testing for those whose exposure has resulted in an increased risk of disease, and such testing could possibly lead to early detection and treatment, not only mitigating future illness but also reducing the cost to the tortfeasor. However, the potential systemic effects of
creating a new, full-blown tort law cause of action cannot be ignored. For instance, dispensing with the physical injury requirement could permit tens of millions of potential plaintiffs to recover monitoring costs, effectively flooding the courts while concomitantly depleting the purported tortfeasor's resources for those who have actually sustained damage. From a practical standpoint, it cannot be overlooked that there is no framework concerning how such a medical monitoring program would be implemented and administered. Courts generally lack the technical expertise necessary to effectively administer a program heavily dependent on scientific disciplines
such as medicine, chemistry, and environmental science. The Legislature is plainly in the better position to study the impact and consequences of creating such a cause of action, including the
costs of implementation and the burden on the courts in adjudicating such claims.

The court concluded that these policy reasons militated against a judicially created independent cause of action for medical monitoring. Allowance of such a claim, absent any evidence of present physical injury or damage to property, would constitute a significant deviation from the state's tort jurisprudence.

Defendants in a fracking toxic tort case last week petitioned the Colorado Supreme Court to overrule an appeals court decision which had struck down a Lone Pine order issued by the trial court in the case. See Antero Resources Corp. et al. v. William G. Strudley et al., No. 2013SC576 (Colo. S. Ct.).

Readers may recall that we posted on this case before, describing the significant discovery and cost burdens presented by a case of this nature; the trial court had endeavored to invoke a more efficient procedure than we see in the standard case management order. The court required plaintiffs, before opening full two-way discovery, to make a prima facie showing of exposure and causation, a form of a Lone Pine order. See Lore v. Lone Pine Corp., No. L-33606-85, 1986 WL 635707 (N.J. Sup. Ct. Nov. 18, 1986). The court further determined that the prima facie showing requirement should not prejudice plaintiffs because ultimately they would need to come forward with this data and expert opinion on exposure and causation in order to establish their claims anyway.

Last month, the appeals court struck down the order finding there was no showing of "extraordinary circumstances" to require departure from the civil rules of procedure. Defendants sought an extension of time for filing a petition for writ of certiorari, which the Colorado Supreme Court granted.

Defendants recently filed a petition for writ of certiorari noting that the appeals court’s decision contradicts the many state cases endorsing active case management by trial courts. Those trial courts are vested with wide discretion to adopt non-standard case management procedures and to customize discovery based on the unique circumstances and needs of each case, particularly cases involving complex scientific or technical issues.

The "good cause” to modify the standard case management order is fact-specific and thus a trial court finding it is entitled to deference on appeal. It unduly handcuffs and hamstrings the trial courts to suggest that it is beyond a trial court’s discretion to enter a modified case management order requiring toxic tort plaintiffs to come forward with basic evidence of exposure, injury and/or causation in an appropriate case.

Readers will recall our posts about Comcast Corp. v. Behrend, 133 S. Ct. 1426 (2013), and the majority's ruing that Rule 23 requires proof that damages and injury are amenable to class treatment, and not overrun with individual issues, before a class properly can be certified.

A district court considering class certification must look at how damages will be tried and managed if a class is certified. Is it a mere mathematical exercise, or are there factual issues that vary by class members? And the district court must conduct a rigorous analysis of the class plaintiff's proposed method for computing damages allegedly on a class-wide basis (which often will require a Daubert analysis in many cases).

While it is unusual for a dissenting justice to read the dissent from the bench, in this case two justices did so. One wonders whether that emphasis on the intensity of the dissent is inconsistent with the content of the dissent, which tried to argue that the decision could be limited to its facts, nothing big happened here, nothing to look at, keep moving... The plaintiffs’ bar has been desperate to convince the lower courts to adopt the dissenting view, but with limited success as district courts continue to rely on Comcast to deny class certification. E.g., Torres v. Nutrisystem Inc., 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 66444 (C.D. Cal. Apr. 8, 2013).

Earlier this month the D.C. Circuit relied on the precedent in In re: Rail Freight Fuel Surcharge Antitrust Litigation – MDL No. 1869, No. 12-7085, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 16500 (D.C. Cir. Aug. 9, 2013), to confirm that plaintiffs must have a way to establish class-wide proof of damages and injury.

In In re: Rail Freight Fuel Surcharge, plaintiffs allegedly shipped products via rail and were required to pay rate-based fuel surcharges by several major freight railroads. The heyday of the rate-based fuel surcharge did not last. Eventually, the Surface Transportation Board (STB) put an end to the practice with respect to common carrier traffic within its regulatory authority. But plaintiffs alleged collusion and price fixing among the defendants in the meantime. The district court granted class certification.

The plaintiffs’ case for certification hinged on two regression models prepared by their expert. The first of these, the “common factor model,” attempted to isolate the common determinants of the prices shippers paid to the defendants. The expert also constructed a “damages model,” which sought to quantify, in percentage terms, the overcharge due to conspiratorial conduct at various intervals over the class period.

On appeal, after a discussion on interlocutory appeal standards, the D. C. Circuit held that meeting the predominance requirement demanded more than common evidence the defendants colluded to raise fuel surcharge rates. The plaintiffs must also show that they can prove, through common evidence, that all class members were in fact injured by the alleged conspiracy. On the damages prong, defendants argued that the expert's model purported to quantify the injury in fact to all class members attributable to the defendants’ collusive conduct. But the same methodology also detected injury where none could exist. In Comcast, the Court held that indisputably the role of the district court is scrutinize such evidence before granting certification, even when doing so “requires inquiry into the merits of the claim.” 133 S. Ct. at 1433. If the proposed damages model cannot withstand this scrutiny then, that is not just a merits issue. Here, the expert's model was essential to the plaintiffs’ claim that they could offer common evidence of class-wide injury. See Fuel Surcharge II, 287 F.R.D. at 66. No damages model, no predominance, no class certification.

Moreover, the court of appeals noted that it is not enough to submit a questionable model whose unsubstantiated claims cannot be completely refuted through a priori analysis. Otherwise, “at the class-certification stage any method of measurement is acceptable so long as it can be applied class-wide, no matter how arbitrary the measurements may be.” Comcast, 133 S. Ct. at 1433.

Before Comcast v. Behrend, the case law was far more accommodating to class certification under Rule 23(b)(3), said the court of appeals. It is now clear, however, that Rule 23 not only authorizes a hard look at the soundness of statistical models that purport to show predominance—the rule commands it. Mindful that the district court neither considered the damages model’s flaw in its certification decision nor had the benefit of Comcast’s guidance, the court decided to vacate class certification and remand the case to the district court to afford it an opportunity to consider these issues in the first instance..

The case is useful beyond the antitrust world in its recognition that Comcast did make a difference in how lower courts are to treat the issue of predominance with respect to an analysis of injury and damages. Certification of a class without class-wide proof of both injury and damages is subject to reversal on the prong of predominance.

The plaintiff asserted that because the label did not mention that flavoring and aroma are added, consumers desirous of 100% pure and fresh squeezed orange juice had been deceived into purchasing Florida’s Natural. The plaintiff did not aver that he personally ever consumed Florida’s Natural orange juice or that he suffered any ill health effects from consumption of the same, but rather alleged only that he purchased it, repeatedly, over the six years preceding the first complaint. The essence of his claim concerned the question of how much processing is permissible in a product labeled as “fresh” “100%” or “pure.”

Despite plaintiff’s numerous allegations as to the general conduct of the orange juice industry, the court found the plaintiff had failed to state an actual, concrete injury. He stated he did not know store-bought orange juice was not fresh squeezed, but nowhere alleged any harm from its purchase or consumption. He did not even claim that upon learning packaged orange juice was not truly “fresh”, he had to resort to squeezing his own oranges. In other words, despite plaintiff’s protestations that he did not receive the product he believed he was purchasing, he made no allegation that he had stopped purchasing what he considered to be an inferior product in favor of
purchasing what he actually sought, which is apparently unpasteurized fresh squeezed orange juice.

In an attempt to save his claim and demonstrate an injury worthy of finding standing, the plaintiff argued that he did not receive the “benefit of the bargain” of what he believed he was actually purchasing. He professed to compare the cost of defendant’s orange juice to an orange juice concentrate, and alleged the difference between them is proof of his loss. This theory did not rise to the level of a “concrete and particularized” injury as opposed to a “conjectural or hypothetical” one. Plaintiff did not allege what the “higher value charged” was or what the orange juice supposedly “would have been worth” if it was “as warranted.” He did not show what products he actually bought, when he bought them, or where he bought them, much less what he paid.

From a legal standpoint, many courts have held that “benefit of the bargain” theories of injury like plaintiff’s, where a plaintiff claims to have paid more for a product than the plaintiff would have paid had the plaintiff been fully informed (or that the plaintiff would not have purchased the product at all), do not confer standing. See In re Fruit Juice Products Marketing and Sales Practices
Litigation, 831 F.Supp.2d 507 (D. Mass. 2011); see also Birdsong v. Apple, Inc., 590 F.3d 955, 961-62 (9th Cir. 2009) (noting potential for hearing loss from improper iPod use was not sufficient to state an injury for standing); cf. Rivera v. Wyeth-Ayerst Labs., 283 F.3d 315, 319-21 (5th Cir. 2002); McKinnis v. Kellogg USA, 2007 WL 4766060, *4 (C.D.Cal.2007); Sugawara v. Pepsico, Inc., 2009 WL 1439115 (E.D.Cal.2009). Young v. Johnson & Johnson, 2012 WL 1372286 (D.N.J.2012).

The plaintiff also complained that even though the FDA does require that defendant label its product as “pasteurized orange juice,” all of defendant’s other alleged representations were voluntary, and thus not within the protection of the FDA. Because the court found the plaintiff lacked standing to pursue his claims, the court did not have to rely on the impact of the extensive FDA regulations governing orange juice, Nevertheless, the court noted, defendant labeled its orange juice in accordance with FDA regulations. The plaintiff could not dispute that the defendant’s product is “squeezed from our Florida oranges” or “100% orange juice.” Rather, his focus was that the squeezing and pasteurization is performed on a massive scale, and that the pasteurization process destroyed the flavor, causing ingredients already present in orange juice to be replaced in the marketed juice.

However, said the court, the fact that the plaintiff may have believed defendant hired individuals to hand squeeze fresh oranges one by one into juice cartons, then boxed up and delivered the same all over the country does not translate into a concrete injury to plaintiff upon his learning that beliefs about commercially grown and produced orange juice were incorrect. By its very definition under FDA guidelines, pasteurized orange juice is orange juice (1) that has been processed and treated with heat, (2) in which the “pulp and orange oil may [have] been adjusted in accordance with good manufacturing practice,” and (3) which may have been “adjusted” by the addition of concentrated orange juice ingredients or sweeteners. Clearly, the defendant was selling pasteurized orange juice while labeling it “pasteurized orange juice.” Although the plaintiff objected to such labeling, in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, he purchased a product labeled as pasteurized orange juice and then complained that it was pasteurized.

Plaintiffs alleged that a defect in the anti-lock brake system of their vehicles causes the ABS to improperly engage when it is not needed, resulting in increased stopping time and distance. In February 2010, Toyota voluntarily recalled the vehicles and offered to install a software update to remedy the braking defect. Toyota asserted the software update accomplished its intended purpose, and remedied the defect, but plaintiffs claimed that the braking defect was not cured.

Plaintiffs brought five separate class actions in February 2010, later consolidated into an MDL, alleging Toyota had fraudulently induced them to purchase their hybrids by concealing the alleged defect in the braking system. Plaintiffs then moved to certify a class based on Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3), consisting of individuals who purchased or leased the Class Vehicles in California or Texas prior to February 8, 2010. Toyota opposed certification of any class, contending, among other things, that Plaintiffs cannot satisfy the predominance requirement of Rule 23(b)(3).
The court concluded Toyota was correct.

Although there were serious questions as to whether plaintiffs could satisfy the commonality, typicality, and adequacy requirements of Rule 23(a), the court concluded it need not address those questions because plaintiffs clearly could not satisfy the predominance requirement of Rule 23(b)(3). It is beyond dispute that the critical issue involved in this case was whether there was a manifest defect in the ABS that caused an actual injury to each member of the proposed class. Unless plaintiffs could demonstrate such a manifest defect resulting in actual injury, they could not succeed on any of their five product liability claims. The resolution of this crucial issue, however, could not be accomplished through common or generalized proof as is required to maintain a class action. It must be done by an individualized and particularized inquiry for each member of the proposed class.

Most problematic for plaintiffs, said the court, was that they sought to certify a class in which the
substantial majority of class members never suffered an actual injury that was caused by a manifest defect in the ABS. Toyota presented substantial evidence that the updated software installed in the Class Vehicles as part of the national recall rectified any actual or perceived problem with the braking performance of the ABS. Plaintiffs presented no evidence to contradict Toyota’s evidence in this regard. Indeed, plaintiffs did not even retain an expert to render an opinion on the safety and performance of the ABS postrecall. Plaintiffs instead argued that they suffered an actual injury because they would not have paid that same purchase price for each of their vehicles had they known of the problem with the ABS. Plaintiffs’ benefit-of-the-bargain argument was insufficient as a matter of law. Merely offering a creative damages theory does not establish the actual injury that is required to prevail on their product liability claims. And in this case, the class reps and, apparently, the majority of the purported class they seek to represent, received exactly what they paid for — that is a vehicle with a safe and operable ABS. After the updated software was installed in their vehicles, the class reps admitted they had no problem with
the braking performance of their vehicles. They were able to apply their brakes and stop their vehicles without incident. They never sold their vehicles. They never incurred any expense as a result of any problem with the ABS in their vehicles. Simply stated, the majority of the class members suffered no actual injury, let alone a common one resulting from the same manifest defect.

Moreover, since the number of members of the proposed class that allegedly suffered an injury was tiny, the proposal to certify a class of thousands of owners of the Class Vehicles, then determine which few suffered an actual injury that resulted from a manifest defect in the ABS, would render the class action device nothing more than a façade for conducting a small number of highly individualized, fact-intensive cases. In re Cannon Cameras, 237 F.R.D. 357, 360 (S.D.N.Y. 2006). Such a class action is certainly not a superior, fair, and efficient method for resolving the parties’ controversy.

The issue of mold-related litigation remains of interest to our readers, perhaps even more so in the aftermath of the widespread damage from Sandy. Recently a federal judge rejected claims alleging that Welk Resort San Diego allowed mold to grow in its rooms causing plaintiffs' "Platinum Points" time share currency to lose value as a result. See Martinez v. The Welk Group Inc. et al., No. 3:09-cv-02883 (S.D. Cal.).

Plaintiff alleged economic damages stemming from defendants alleged failure to abate and disclose the presence of mold at the Welk Resort San Diego. (Younger readers may not recall, but born in a German speaking town in North Dakota in 1903, Mr. Lawrence Welk didn’t learn to speak English until he was 21. This gave him the accent that marked his signature line: “Wunnerful, wunnerful.” His Lawrence Welk Show was cheerful and wholesome with bubbles, the music that Welk called “champagne music,” and a parade of smiling dancers, singers and musicians that older audiences loved.)

Plaintiff purchased "Platinum Points" from Welk Resort Group, Inc. in 2007, which provided him with the opportunity to stay at Welk resorts around the world or at any other time-share resort that accepts such Platinum Points for vacation stays. At some point during the sales process, plaintiff allegedly asked, and the sales agent assured him the Resort was clean, safe, and well maintained. Plaintiff said he purchased his Platinum Points solely for the purpose of staying at the Welk Resort San Diego, which is located in Escondido, California, and has more than 650 units in three subdivisions: the Lawrence Welk Resort Villas, the Villas on the Green, and the Mountain Villas. During a visit to the Resort in 2009, plaintiff notified the front desk that his room smelled musty. Later in a utility closet, he found something that may have been mold, but he could not be certain. A neighbor later told him him that there was mold at the Resort.

Subsequent to his 2009 stay at the Resort, Plaintiff decided he would never use his points again—either at Welk or any other timeshare resort. Additionally, Plaintiff did not attempt, nor was he willing to attempt, to sell his Platinum Points to another individual, as he did not believe it would be "ethical" given his knowledge of the alleged "mold issues" at the Resort. Consequently, plaintiff claimed his Platinum Points have diminished in value.

Plaintiff sued for breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, negligence, nuisance, breach of the implied warranty of habitability, and for violations of California’s Unfair Competition Law (“UCL”). (Earlier plaintiff's motion for class certification was rejected as the court determined that the claims were too individualized; Martinez’s reluctance to use his points was not typical of the proposed class.) Defendants then moved for summary judgment, contending that plaintiff could not prove he was injured as a result of defendants’ conduct.

Specifically, defendants contended that plaintiff offered no proof to support his contention that his
Platinum Points had diminished in value. In fact, plaintiff admits that when his Platinum Points “lost
value,” he meant they lost value to him because he was not using them. In actuality, Welk Resort San Diego has maintained its premier rating since 2006, evidencing that Platinum Point Owners have maintained the same trading power since that time. Under this system, owners of Welk Platinum Points can exchange points for stays at non-Welk properties through a timeshare exchange company. Therefore, defendants asserted that plaintiff’s damages were either “self-inflicted,”as he was unwilling to use his Platinum Points; or speculative, as he failed to present evidence of diminution of value. In response, plaintiff alleged that his damages were not self-inflicted because he purchased the points specifically for the purpose of staying at Welk Resorts San Diego, and purchased the points specifically because he wanted to stay at a place that was clean, safe and well maintained.

To satisfy the damages element of a claim, a plaintiff must show appreciable and actual damages, that are clearly ascertainable in both their nature and origin. Here, however, plaintiff offered no evidence to rebut defendants’ proof that his Platinum Points currently have the same value on the exchange market as they did when he first purchased his points. Additionally, plaintiff failed to address the depositions of other Resort guests, which stated that they enjoy the Resort facilities and believe that the Resort is well maintained. Indeed, although more than 130,000 guests stay at the Resort each year, defendants were aware of fewer then 15 complaints regarding mold in the last 8 years. Thus, the only evidence plaintiff produced in support of his claim that his points decreased in value was his own self-serving testimony as to his personal reasons for refusing to stay at the Resort, even though defendants did nothing to prevent plaintiff from using his points.

Plaintiff’s negligence claim alleged defendants breached their duty by selling time-share ownership points for dwellings that suffered from dangerous leaks, water intrusion, mold, mildew and/or fungus, and for failing to maintain and repair those units. The negligence claim sought solely economic damages, so plaintiff was precluded because he sought recovery in tort for purely economic loss, and was thus barred by California’s economic loss doctrine. See KB Home v. Super. Ct., 112 Cal.App.4th 1076, 1079, 5 Cal.Rptr.3d 587 (2004). Under California law, the economic loss doctrine bars tort claims based on the same facts and damages as breach of contract claims. The doctrine precludes recovery for purely economic loss due to disappointed expectations, unless the plaintiff can demonstrate harm above and beyond a broken contractual promise. The rule seeks to prevent the law of contract and the law of tort from dissolving one into the other. Thus, conduct amounting to a breach of contract becomes tortious only when it also violates a duty independent of the contract arising from principles of tort law and exposes a plaintiff to liability for personal damages independent of the plaintiff's economic loss.

Under the UCL claim, defendants argued plaintiff lacked standing to sue because plaintiff (1) had not suffered “injury in fact” because he had not experienced any physical injuries and the value of his Platinum Points had not diminished in value; (2) had not suffered a legally cognizable injury because he was still able to use his Points; and (3) even if plaintiff had evidence that his Platinum Points had diminished in value, there was no casual connection between the alleged wrongdoing and plaintiff’s speculation as to the value of his Platinum Points.

The court noted that to have standing under the UCL, a plaintiff must establish that he has (1) suffered an injury in fact; and (2) lost money or property as a result of the unfair competition. Walker v. Geico Gen. Ins. Co., 558 F.3d 1025, 1027 (9th Cir.2009). The “as a result of” language requires the plaintiff to show a causal connection between the defendant’s alleged UCL violation and plaintiff’s injury. Thus, to plead a UCL claim, a plaintiff must show he has suffered distinct and palpable injury as a result of the alleged unlawful or unfair conduct. Here, the court found plaintiff’s claim failed as a matter of law because he failed to meet the standing requirement under the UCL. Although plaintiff alleged that an employee of Welk stated that the Resort was “clean, safe, and well-maintained,” he offered no credible evidence to support the assertion that these statements were in fact false, other than his own self-serving declaration. Plaintiff’s own evidence supported the argument that when Welk was made aware of mold issues at the Resort,
it dealt with such issues in a timely fashion. As plaintiff was not barred from using his Platinum Points at the Resort or any other non-Welk facility, he had not shown that he has “lost money or profits” within the meaning of the statute.

We have posted several times on the disturbing trend of plaintiffs seeking to turn virtually every advertising claim, label statement, or good old fashioned "puffing" about a product into an expensive consumer fraud class action. It is with great interest that we note for the loyal readers of MassTortDefense those putative class actions in which the courts require plaintiffs to fully meet all the underlying elements of the claim, and apply some common sense to those elements.

Plaintiffs were consumers of Cheerios who resided in California, New Jersey, and New York, seeking to sue on behalf of all similarly situated individuals in the United States. Plaintiffs alleged General Mills deceived customers by marketing, advertising and promoting Cheerios as having the ability to prevent, mitigate, or treat high cholesterol. According to plaintiffs, defendant advertised that Cheerios could help lower a person’s cholesterol by 4% in six weeks when part of a healthy breakfast. (We fondly remember the simple days of "Big G, Little O. Get "Go" power with Cheerios!")

Defendant moved for summary judgment, alleging that plaintiffs did not suffer any concrete or particularized injury and thus did not have standing to sue. See Koronthaly v. L’Oreal USA, Inc., 374 Fed. Appx. 257 (2010). To prove constitutional standing, a plaintiff must demonstrate (1) an injury-in-fact that is actual or imminent and concrete and particularized, not conjectural or hypothetical, (2) that is fairly traceable to the defendant’s challenged conduct, and (3) is likely to be redressed by a favorable judicial decision. Summers v. Earth Island Inst., 129 S.Ct. 1142, 1149 (2009).

Plaintiffs sought a full refund for all boxes of Cheerios that plaintiffs purchased during the relevant time-frame, on the typical theory that plaintiffs “would not have purchased Cheerios” but for defendant’s alleged deceptive practices. That assertion, however, did not comport with the testimony of the plaintiffs themselves. Generally, the out-of-pocket theory applies only when the seller's misrepresentations render the product essentially worthless. Plaintiffs admitted they purchased their Cheerios for crunchiness, taste, convenience, as well as to help lower their cholesterol. Moreover, Ms. Theodore, like many mothers, selected Cheerios due to its healthy, simple ingredients for her children. The contention that these plaintiffs would not have purchased Cheerios but for defendant’s alleged misrepresentation was also contradicted by the testimony that Mr. Myers, Ms. Acevedo and Ms. Theodore still eat or purchase Cheerios today, and for various reasons including the ingredients (Theodore), and the taste (Myers and Acevedo) and convenience. As such, plaintiffs failed to adequately show that they were entitled to full purchase price refunds, especially when they ate the Cheerios after learning of the alleged issues, and are still eating them today for other reasons.

Plaintiffs alternatively sought the difference between what plaintiffs paid for Cheerios and the price that plaintiffs supposedly would have paid for Cheerios, if defendant had not engaged in the alleged misrepresentation; readers will recognize this as the other typical injury theory, the so-called benefit of the bargain approach. This theory of relief was equally flawed, said the court. Plaintiffs purchased a food product, and got the exact product with the exact ingredients listed on the label. At most, plaintiffs simply claimed that their expectations of the cereal were disappointed. Dissatisfaction with a product, however, is not a quantifiable loss that can be remedied under the CFActs. Even a technical alleged violation of FDA food labeling regulations would not show that plaintiffs purchased boxes of Cheerios that did not contain the ingredients listed on the Cheerios boxes. And, again, several plaintiffs consumed all of the Cheerios purchased for various other reasons such as convenience and crunchiness. Plaintiffs therefore failed to adequately allege that they suffered “benefit of the bargain” damages.

The court granted summary judgment, including on the class allegations, which clearly failed on typicality and commonality.

One of the things we like to do here at MassTortDefense is keep an eye on the non-traditional claims plaintiffs concoct -- to evade the requirements of traditional torts, or to expand the group of "injured" plaintiffs. Earlier this month the Third Circuit knocked down just such an attempt. See In Re: Schering Plough Corp. Intron/Temodar Consumer Class Action, Nos. 10-3046 and 10-3047 (3d Cir. May 16, 2012).

The issue here was an attempt by two groups of plaintiffs to hold a drug manufacturer liable for violating the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) by allegedly marketing drugs for off-label uses. The court of appeals affirmed that neither had standing to maintain this cause of action, primarily for failure to allege a plausible nexus between the assailed marketing campaign and the physicians‘ decisions to prescribe certain drugs for off-label use.

While off-label marketing is prohibited, prescription drugs frequently have therapeutic uses other than their FDA-approved indications. The FDCAct does not regulate the practice of medicine, and so physicians may lawfully prescribe drugs for off-label uses. See Buckman Co. v. Plaintiffs’ Legal Comm., 531 U.S. 341, 350 (2001) (recognizing off-label usage as an accepted and necessary corollary of the FDA‘s mission to regulate in this area without directly interfering with the practice of medicine); Wash. Legal Found. v. Henney, 202 F.3d 331, 333 (D.C. Cir. 2000) (physician may prescribe a legal drug to serve any purpose that he or she deems appropriate, regardless of whether the drug has been approved for that use by the FDA).

Plaintiffs' claims, as is so common, attempted to piggy-back off of prior government investigations. They alleged that Schering‘s marketing practices caused physicians to prescribe the drugs for off-label uses instead of equally effective alternative treatments that were approved for the prescribed uses or no medication at all. They assert that these marketing techniques led to a significant increase in prescriptions of the drugs for off-label uses, and contend that this caused the plaintiffs an "ascertainable loss" (key concept) because they supposedly paid millions of dollars for the drugs that they otherwise would not have paid.

The district court granted a motion to dismiss, and the plaintiffs appealed.

A motion to dismiss for lack of standing implicates Rule 12(b)(1) because standing is a jurisdictional matter, and 12(b)(6) with the Twombly/Iqbal guidance. While the plausibility standard of those cases does not impose a probability requirement, it does demand more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully. The plausibility determination is a context-specific task that requires the reviewing court to draw on its judicial experience and common sense; and some claims require more factual explication than others to state a plausible claim for relief.

The Constitution imposes a requirement that there be an actual case or controversy. Federal courts have developed several justiceability doctrines to enforce the case-or-controversy requirement, and perhaps the most important of these doctrines is the requirement that a litigant have standing to invoke the power of a federal court. The standing question is whether the plaintiff has alleged such a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy as to warrant his invocation of federal-court jurisdiction and to justify exercise of the court's remedial powers on his behalf. The plaintiff bears the burden of meeting the irreducible constitutional minimum of Article III standing by establishing three elements: First, the plaintiff must have suffered an injury in fact—an invasion of a legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical. Second, there must be a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of—the injury has to be fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant, and not the result of the independent action of some third party not before the court. Third, it must be likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision.

In addition to meeting the constitutional standing requirements, plaintiffs seeking recovery under RICO must satisfy additional standing criterion set forth in section 1964(c) of the statute: that the plaintiff suffered an injury to business or property; and that the plaintiff‘s injury was proximately caused by the defendant‘s violation.

The Union plaintiff on behalf of a proposed class of third-party payors alleged economic loss based on paying for ineffective drugs. Accordingly, to establish standing, it must allege facts showing a causal relationship between the alleged injury—payments for a specific drug that was ineffective or unsafe for the use for which it was prescribed—and Schering‘s alleged wrongful conduct. However, there were no averments that came close to satisfying this standard. It was pure conjecture to conclude that because Schering‘s misconduct supposedly caused other doctors to write prescriptions for ineffective off-label uses for other products, the Union ended up paying for prescriptions for a different drug due to the same kind of alleged misconduct. (Again, attempted piggy-backing on government allegations.)

The court of appeals spent considerable effort reviewing claims of a proposed class of plaintiff consumers, who tried to prove standing by incorporating materials from the government investigation and concocting a series of purported links between drug trials, marketing activities and prescribing doctors' behavior. The district court rejected this, and plaintiffs' focus on appeal on the pleading standards for each of these claims was secondary to the threshold issue that the consumers did not adequately allege an injury fairly traceable to Schering‘s alleged misconduct. Although the complaint was replete with factual allegations and indeed asserted them with somewhat greater specificity than the third-party payor complaint, they do not present a plausible allegation actually linking the injuries to any type of miscommunication or false claim about the drugs that were actually prescribed.

Readers will recall our earlier postings on "fracking"; natural gas from shale rock promises to provide cleaner, abundant energy for the U.S. New drilling methods allow companies to tap into huge quantities of gas from shale rock. New estimates show that we have enough of this natural gas to last 100 years at current consumption rates.

The second biggest natural gas field in the world -- the Marcellus -- runs through your humble blogger's home state of Pennsylvania. The energy, jobs, taxes, and independence that tapping into this domestic resource will bring has spurred much interest and anticipation. The method to extract the gas from the rock is called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which like any technology, carries potential risks.

However, the potential drilling into the Marcellus Shale has caught the attention of the plaintiffs' bar, including personal injury and environmental class action lawyers. Plaintiffs lawyers are openly speculating about everything from gas leaks and fires, to environmental groundwater impacts, to the problems of large tanker trucks on small rural roadways.

We posted before about one such case already filed regarding another deposit, out West. See Strudley v. Antero Resources Corp., No. 2011CV2218 (Colo. Dist. Ct., Denver Cty., 3/24/11). Plaintiffs sued the gas exploration company and drilling equipment contractor, alleging that the hyrdrofracking contaminated their well water.

Earlier this month, the Colorado court dismissed the claim, relying on a Lone Pine order, 2012 WL 1932470. The case arose from drilling and completing three natural gas wells in Silt, Colorado known as the Diemoz A well, the Fenno Ranch A well, and the Three Siblings A well. Construction of the Wells allegedly began on August 9, 2010. By January 10, 2011, plaintiffs had moved out of their home and away from Silt.

The central issue was whether defendants caused plaintiffs’ alleged injuries, which
plaintiffs vaguely described as “health injuries” from exposure to air and water contaminated by
defendants with “hazardous gases, chemicals and industrial wastes." Plaintiffs also alleged that
defendants had caused loss of use and enjoyment of their property, diminution in value of
property, loss of quality of life, and other damages.

Cognizant of the significant discovery and cost burdens presented by a case of this nature, the court endeavored to invoke a more efficient procedure than we see in the standard case management order. The court required plaintiffs, before opening full two-way discovery, to make a prima facie showing of exposure and causation, a form of a Lone Pine order. See Lore v. Lone Pine Corp., No. L-33606-85 1986 WL 635707 (N.J. Sup. Ct. Nov. 18, 1986). The court further
determined that the prima facie showing requirement should not prejudice plaintiffs because
ultimately they would need to come forward with this data and expert opinion on exposure and causation in order to establish their claims anyway.

The court also seemed influenced by the fact that the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (“COGCC”) had conducted an investigation of the plaintiffs’ well water and had concluded that the water supply was not affected by oil and gas operations in the vicinity. Defendants also provided evidence to support their contention that the air emission-control
equipment at the Wells and prevailing wind patterns made it unlikely that plaintiffs or their
property were exposed to harmful levels of chemicals from defendants’ activities.

Specifically, the CMO required plaintiffs to identify the identity of each hazardous substance from defendants’ activities to which he or she was exposed and which caused him or
her injury; evidence whether any and each of these substances can cause the type(s) of disease or illness that plaintiffs claimed (general causation); the dose or other quantitative measurement of the concentration, timing and duration of his/her exposure to each substance; a medically recognized diagnosis of the specific disease or illness from which each plaintiff allegedly suffers or is at risk for such that medical monitoring is purportedly necessary; and a conclusion that such illness was in fact caused by such exposure (specific causation).

Plaintiffs were given 105 days to comply with the CMO. After that time, all plaintiff's expert could opine was that “sufficient environmental and health information exists to merit further substantive discovery.” Significantly, he offered no opinion as to whether exposure was a contributing factor to plaintiffs’ alleged injuries or illness. And the requested march towards further discovery
without some adequate proof of causation of injury is precisely what the CMO was meant to
curtail. The expert suggested, at best, a very weak circumstantial causal connection between the Wells and plaintiffs’ injuries. In fact, he merely temporally associated plaintiff’s symptoms with the Wells being brought into production.

While the proffered evidence showed existence of certain low level gases and compounds in both the air and water of plaintiffs’ Silt home, there was neither sufficient data nor expert analysis stating with any level of probability that a causal connection does in fact exist between the alleged injuries and exposure to defendants drilling activities. This is particularly telling, since Mr. Strudley complained of “nasal sinus congestion, nose bleeds at inconvenient times” and “an aversion to odors,” while he owns a painting business, and was frequently exposed to paint vapors -- offering a ready alternative explanation for his alleged respiratory symptoms.

The expert did not opine on whether any and each of the substances present in the air and water samples (taken after plaintiffs had moved out) can cause the type(s) of disease or illness that plaintiffs claimed (general causation). He did not discuss the dose or other quantitative measurement of the concentration, timing and duration of the alleged exposure to each substance. Finally, and perhaps most significantly,the expert did not even attempt to draw a conclusion that plaintiffs’ alleged injuries or illnesses were in fact caused by such exposure (specific causation).

The case reflects an effective, but also appropriate, use of the Lone Pine order. It may be a useful model for other fracking toxic tort suits, and is important as an illustration of a method to avoid long, expensive, and unnecessary discovery in such cases.

In September 2010, the trial court had issued a ruling dismissing the amended complaints filed by consumers and an insurer, who alleged that defendants had improperly marketed Actimmune as a treatment for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Despite the additional allegations included in plaintiffs' latest amended pleadings, plaintiffs still failed to properly allege that defendants' conduct caused plaintiffs' injuries. Therefore, plaintiffs lacked standing to pursue their off-label marketing claims under the asserted consumer fraud claims. Establishing that a defendant violated a law only accomplishes part of a plaintiff's burden; plaintiffs were also required to prove that they were injured “as a result of” defendants' alleged law-violating conduct.

In the context of the instant case, the “as a result of” language placed the burden on plaintiffs to establish that they actually relied upon the representations delivered through defendants' off-label marketing. Plaintiffs failed to allege a plausible causal chain of injury as required by Iqbal/Twombly.

The shortcoming in the consumer plaintiffs' pleadings was simple: all of the consumer plaintiffs failed to allege that their doctors believed that Actimmune was an effective treatment for IPF “as a result of” defendants' off-label promotion of Actimmune. With respect to each plaintiff, the complaint alleged only that their doctors were “exposed to at least some of InterMune's unfair and unlawful off-label marketing.” That was not enough; claims dismissed.

Your humble blogger is in the minority, not being a coffee drinker. Nearly 60% of adults drink coffee daily. The average American drinks 3.1 cups of coffee each day. This contributes to an $18 billion U.S. coffee market. One of the tremendous innovations (speaking from experience, having given these as holiday gifts) in the market is the single cup brewing machine for the home, allowing coffee lovers to make less than a full pot, and to choose from among hundreds of flavors and brands of coffee-related beverages.

Defendants are in the specialty coffee and coffee maker businesses. They manufacture single-cup brewers, accessories and coffee, tea, cocoa and other beverages in "K–Cup portion packs.” Plaintiff Green maintained that his machine failed to brew the programmed amounts of K–Cup coffee within a few weeks of use. Plaintiff asserted that the machines had defective components, including defective pumps. As a result, the machines allegedly failed and brewed less than the specified amount. Furthemore, this defect allegedly caused consumers to use additional K–Cups to brew a single beverage.

Plaintiff maintained that defendants' actions were in violation of the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act (“CFA”), N.J. Stat. Ann. § 56:8–1, et seq., and constituted a breach of implied warranty.

Defendants moved to dismiss. The court noted that threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice under Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009), and Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007). If the well-pleaded facts do not permit the court to infer more than the mere possibility of misconduct, the complaint should be dismissed for failing to show that the pleader is entitled to relief. A plaintiff's obligation to provide the grounds of his entitlement to relief requires more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do.

The motion challenged plaintiffs' standing. To have standing, the plaintiff must have suffered an injury in fact—an invasion of a legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized, and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical. Second, there must be a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of—the injury has to be fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant, and not the result of the independent action of some third party not before the court. Third, it must be likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision. The injury-in-fact element is often determinative.

The injury must affect the plaintiff in a personal and individual way. Here, Green alleged that he purchased and used the Keurig Platinum Brewing System (model series B70). Nevertheless, he sought to represent all individuals in New Jersey who “purchased or received” a variety of Keurig Brewing Systems. Plaintiff did not have standing to pursue a claim that products he neither purchased nor used did not work as advertised.

Regarding that model series B70, plaintiff contended in his complaint that, because of defective components, the coffee machines at issue brew a lesser amount of coffee than the companies represented, compromising the quality of the beverage. Consumers are then forced to use additional K-Cups, which are a portion pack for the systems, according to the complaint. Defendants maintained that even if their alleged conduct was unlawful, plaintiff had not sufficiently pled ascertainable loss. In a misrepresentation case, a plaintiff generally may show ascertainable loss by either out-of-pocket loss or a demonstration of loss in value. In this case, Green did not allege that he made a claim for warranty repair or replacement of his machine. The warranty provided as part of the contract of sale is part of the benefit of the bargain between the parties. Any defects that arise and are addressed by warranty, at no cost to the consumer, do not provide the predicate loss that the CFA expressly requires for a private claim. Because plaintiff had not availed himself of defendants' warranty, he could not allege that the warranty does not address the defect in his machine.

Furthermore, the court found unpersuasive plaintiff's argument that the warranty did not address the defects in the brewers because other consumers allegedly reported that their replaced or repaired brewers were equally defective. Allegations regarding the experience of absent members of the putative class, in general, cannot fulfill the requirement of pleading injury with adequate specificity.

Similarly, plaintiff did not sufficiently plead loss in value. Plaintiff broadly asserted that he suffered a loss because each brewer failed to perform its advertised purpose and caused purchasers to suffer a loss of value of the product. But Green failed to allege how much he paid for his brewer and how much other comparable brewers manufactured by competitors cost at the time of purchase. Furthermore, Green had not suffered a diminution in value because the defective brewer could have been repaired or replaced with a new brewer which would have had its own one-year warranty.

Regarding the implied warranty claim, the general purpose of the brewers is to brew beverages. Even if defendants may have advertised that the machines would brew a specific amount of beverage, that alone did not transform the “general” purpose. Green did not allege that his machine would not brew coffee or that it was inoperable. The complaint was also devoid of any allegation that plaintiff can no longer use his brewer. Therefore, Green had not sufficiently alleged that his brewer was unfit for its ordinary purpose of brewing beverages at the time of purchase.

Defendants also contended that the class allegations should be dismissed. Plaintiff argued that the Court should deny the motion because it was premature. Nevertheless, a court may strike class action allegations in those cases where the complaint itself demonstrates that the requirements for maintaining a class action cannot be met. Here, the court concluded that the plaintiff could not meet the predominance requirement set forth in Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(b).

The complaint did not allege that all individuals in New Jersey who purchased the Keurig Brewing Systems had experienced the defect. Plaintiff acknowledged that there were members in the putative class who had not yet suffered the alleged pump failure. Consequently, the putative class included individuals who do not presently have a claim against defendants. Proving that defendants breached the implied warranty of merchantability would also require an individualized inquiry. Not every member of the putative class experienced a defect with the model series B70. Even if the purported defect had manifested in all of the brewers purchased within the class period, the court would have to make individual inquiries as to the cause and extent of the defect. Motion granted.

The plaintiffs were more than 15,000 property owners near the former Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant in Colorado. In 2006, a jury found against defendants Dow and Rockwell. In 2008, the federal trial court ordered the companies to pay a total of $926 million in damages. The 10th Circuit reversed.

At issue now is whether state substantive law controls the standard of compensable harm in suits under the Price-Anderson Act, or whether the Act instead imposes a federal standard; and, secondly, whether, if a federal standard applies, a property owner whose land has been contaminated by plutonium must show some physical injury to the property beyond the contamination itself in order to recover.

The court of appeals had concluded that plutonium contamination by itself was not adequate under the Act. In particular, property owners’ fears that the plutonium might damage their health was not a sufficient basis to award damages.

The case raises the all-too-familiar scenario of trial courts dispensing with traditional elements of a cause of action in order to proceed with class litigation. Plaintiffs alleged that defendants were responsible for plutonium emissions that diminished their property values. But they did not prove any present physical injury to person or property, or loss of use of property, on a class-wide basis. Rather, they vigorously --and successfully-- urged the district court to dispense with any such injury requirement. The district court allowed petitioners to recover based solely on a risk of injury to person or property, even if unverifiable or scientifically unfounded.

A federal court recently denied class certification in a case brought on behalf of consumers accusing Epson America Inc. of misrepresenting how its NX series of printers functioned with ink cartridges. Christopher O’Shea et al. v. Epson America Inc. et al., No. 09-cv-08063 C.D. Cal.). Readers may recall our post that the court earlier dismissed many of the plaintiffs' claims on the basis that a manufacturer is not required under consumer protection laws to denigrate its own product and broadcast that its product may not perform as well as its competition.

In May 2009, plaintiff Rogers purchased a “Stylus NX 200” inkjet printer manufactured by defendants. Her decision to purchase this printer was allegedly based, in part, on a statement on the printer box that read: “Replace only the color you need with individual ink cartridges.” Plaintiff allegedly understood this statement to mean that the printer would only require a black cartridge to print black text. In actuality, plaintiff alleged, the Epson NX 200 printer requires all cartridges to function. She subsequently filed suit against Epson claiming that Epson failed to disclose and affirmatively misrepresented the features of the printer.

Plaintiff moved for class certification. The interesting part of the court's analysis relates to the predominance issue under Rule 23(b)(3). Even though individualized questions of reliance and materiality were diminished under some of the plaintiff's theories because the consumer fraud claims are governed by the “reasonable consumer” test, which requires plaintiff to show that members of the public are likely to be deceived, Williams v. Gerber Products Co., 523 F.3d 934, 938 (9th Cir. 2008), the notions of reliance and injury still impacted class certification. Specifically, the court was not convinced that members of the putative class had standing to pursue their claims in federal court. To have standing under Article III, a plaintiff must present an injury that is concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent; fairly traceable to the defendant’s challenged action; and redressable by a favorable ruling.

In the context of Rule 23(b)(3), questions of Article III standing amount to an inquiry as to whether individual issues of injury-in-fact and causation predominate over common issues. While case law suggested that absent class members need not establish standing under the requirements of California’s consumer laws, there is a distinct requirement of Article III standing in federal court. Statutory interpretations cannot permit a federal class action to proceed where class members lack Article III standing. The requirement that all members of the class have Article III standing makes sense. If that were not the rule, a class could include members who could not themselves bring suit to recover, thus permitting a windfall to those class members and allowing Rule 23 to enlarge substantive rights. The court therefore held that absent class members must satisfy the requirements of Article III.

Satisfaction of Article III’s requirements in turn raised individualized issues that defeated certification under Rule 23(b)(3) in this case. Article III requires some showing of injury and causation for a plaintiff to recover. Even if the alleged failure to disseminate truthful information about the product would be subject to common proof, whether each class member was entitled to recover was not susceptible to proof on a class-wide basis because, to establish standing under Article III, each class member was required to show that they suffered some injury as a result of using or buying the product. Plaintiff therefore must show that all persons in the United States who purchased an Epson NX series printer during the class period suffered an injury which was caused by Epson’s alleged misrepresentation, and which was likely to be redressed by a decision in plaintiff’s favor. The record contained evidence indicating that the injury purportedly suffered by some members of the putative class could not fairly be traced to Epson’s allegedly deceptive representation. Those individuals who purchased printers from certain third-party on-line sources, such as Amazon.com, were not exposed to the allegedly deceptive representation before they purchased their printers. Not all consumers who purchased an NX200 printer bought it at a retail store. Nor could standing be established by plaintiff’s (unsupported) assertion that the misrepresentation was on every box of the subclass, since some individuals purchased class printers without ever having been exposed to the allegedly deceptive representation. The fact that these individuals may have subsequently seen the misrepresentation when the package arrived in the mail was beside the point. There cannot be a causal connection between the consumer’s injury (the money spent on the printer) and Epson’s alleged misconduct (the purportedly deceptive advertising) because these consumers purchased the printers without ever seeing the purported misrepresentation.

Based on the foregoing, the court found that individualized issues of injury and causation permeated the class claims.The proposed class failed to satisfy Rule 23(b)(3)’s requirement that common issues predominate.

The Wisconsin court of appeals last week affirmed the dismissal of a plaintiff's medical monitoring complaint for failure to state a claim. Alsteen v. Wauleco Inc., No. 2010AP1643 (Wis. Ct. App., 6/14/11).

Plaintiff alleged that, while living in a nearby neighborhood, she was exposed to carcinogenic
chemicals that defendant Wauleco allegedly released from the Crestline window factory. Alsteen did not allege that she suffered any present health problems due to this exposure; however, she contended she was at an increased risk of developing cancer in the future. She therefore sought damages for future medical monitoring expenses.

From approximately 1946 to 1986, operations at the Crestline site included treatment of wood products with a preservative called “Penta.” Plaintiff alleged that Penta contains hazardous chemicals, including dioxins, pentachlorophenol, and benzene. These chemicals, plaintiff asserted, are harmful to human health and some are classified as possible carcinogens. As a result, the air, soil, surface water, and groundwater in her River Street neighborhood allegedly became contaminated with dangerous levels of these hazardous chemicals. Current and former residents of the neighborhood had ingested, inhaled, and absorbed these chemicals, the complaint averred.

Some neighbors sued for personal injuries; others sued for property damage. A third group, including plaintiff, sued for medical monitoring. Readers know we have posted on medical monitoring issues before.

The trial court dismissed the action for failure to state a claim. The key issue on appeal was whether Wisconsin law recognized a cause of action for medical monitoring, for increased risk of future disease in the absence of present injury. The court of appeals affirmed, relying on Wisconsin case law that requires actual injury before a plaintiff may recover in tort; on the reasoning of the Supreme Court’s decision in Metro-North Commuter Railroad Co. v. Buckley, 521 U.S. 424 (1997)(asymptomatic railroad worker who had been exposed to asbestos could not recover medical monitoring expenses under FELA); and on the persuasive reasoning of courts in several other jurisdictions that have addressed the issue and have articulated sound policy reasons for refusing to recognize medical monitoring claims in the absence of actual injury.

Increased risk of future harm is not an actual injury under Wisconsin law. Meracle v. Children’s Service Society of Wisconsin, 149 Wis. 2d 19, 437 N.W.2d 532 (1989), and mere exposure to a chemical is not an affront to plaintiff's body that constitutes an actual injury. Dyer v. Blackhawk Leather, LLC, 313 Wis. 2d 803, 758 N.W.2d 167 (2008). The court recognized that while medical monitoring in essence substitutes the increased risk of future disease for the traditional tort injury element, this argument is inconsistent with Wisconsin law, which requires plaintiffs to prove present injury. This "argument turns tort law on its head by using the remedy sought —compensation for future medical monitoring — to define the alleged injury." See also Henry v. Dow Chem. Co., 701 N.W.2d 684, 691 (Mich. 2005). Similarly, other courts have rejected the argument that the "need" for medical monitoring itself is an injury, reasoning, “With no injury there can be no cause of action, and with no cause of action there can be no recovery. It is not the remedy that supports the cause of action, but rather the cause of action that supports a remedy.” Wood v. Wyeth-Ayerst Labs., 82 S.W.3d 849, 855 (Ky. 2002).

The state court also found persuasive the worries of the Supreme Court in Buckley: First, it recognized that medical monitoring claims present special difficulties for judges and juries who will be forced to identify which costs are the extra monitoring costs, over and above those otherwise recommended. This problem is compounded by uncertainty among medical professionals about just which tests are most usefully administered and when. The Court also expressed concern that permitting a medical monitoring claim without actual injury could lead to unlimited and unpredictable liability.

Importantly, the state court here recognized that many of the policy concerns identified in Buckley also apply in the context of a court-supervised medical monitoring fund (as opposed to damages). Specifically, the Supreme Court’s concerns regarding the difficulty of assessing the costs of the remedy, unlimited and unpredictable liability, and confusion over application of secondary sources of payment, apply regardless of the form of remedy.

The Indiana Supreme Court recently answered a certified question from the federal court asking whether, in a crash-worthiness case alleging enhanced injuries under the Indiana Products Liability Act, the finder of fact shall apportion fault to the person suffering physical harm when that alleged fault relates to the cause of the underlying accident. Green v. Ford Motor Co., No. 94S00-1007-CQ-348 (Ind. 2/8/11). The court answered in the affirmative, laying out a two-step procedure for the consideration of a plaintiff's fault in enhanced-injury cases.

The case was a damages action by Nicholas Green against Ford Motor Company under the Indiana Product Liability Act, asserting that Green's 1999 Ford Explorer vehicle was defective and unreasonably dangerous, and that Ford was negligent in its design of the vehicle's restraint system. Back in 2006, while Green was driving the vehicle, it left the road, struck a guardrail, rolled down an embankment, and came to rest upside down in a ditch. Green sustained severe injuries. He sued, claiming that his injuries were substantially enhanced because of the alleged defects in the vehicle's restraint system. In the federal case, Green moved in limine to exclude any evidence of his alleged contributory negligence on the grounds that any conduct by him in causing the vehicle to leave the road and strike the guardrail was not relevant to whether Ford's negligent design of the restraint system caused him to suffer greater injuries he would not have otherwise suffered.

So in this "crash-worthiness" claim for the "enhanced injuries" suffered, Green sought to exclude evidence at trial regarding his own alleged initial negligence resulting in the vehicle leaving the road and striking the guardrail. Ford asserted that Green's product liability lawsuit is subject to Indiana's statutory comparative fault principles, which require the jury to consider the fault of Green in causing or contributing to the physical harm he suffered.

The "Crash-worthiness Doctrine" has been identified in numerous cases, e.g., Larsen v. General Motors Corp., 391 F.2d 495, 502 (8th Cir. 1968). The notion is that, in light of the statistical inevitability of collisions, a vehicle manufacturer must use reasonable care in designing a vehicle to avoid subjecting the user to an unreasonable risk of injury in the event of a collision. The reasoning is that the manufacturer should be liable for that portion of the damage or injury caused by the defective design over and above the damage or injury that would have occurred as a result of the impact or collision absent the allegedly defective design. Thus a normal risk of driving must be accepted by the user, but the policy is not to penalize the user by subjecting him to an unreasonable risk of further injury due to negligence in design.

The court noted that in both the state Product Liability Act and the Comparative Fault Act, the legislature employed expansive language to describe the breadth of causative conduct that may be considered in determining and allocating fault. Both enactments require consideration of the fault of all persons who caused or contributed to cause the harm. The Comparative Fault Act further specifies that, in comparative fault actions, the "legal requirements of causal relation apply." The state legislature has thus directed that a broad range of potentially causative conduct initially may be considered by the fact-finder, but that the jury may allocate comparative fault only to those actors whose fault was a proximate cause of the claimed injury.

Therefore, in a crash-worthiness case alleging enhanced injuries under the Indiana Product Liability Act, it is the function of the fact-finder to consider and evaluate the conduct of all relevant actors who are alleged to have caused or contributed to cause the harm for which the plaintiff seeks damages. An assertion that a plaintiff is limiting his claim to "enhanced injuries" caused by only the "second collision" does not preclude the fact-finder from considering evidence of all relevant conduct of the plaintiff reasonably alleged to have contributed to cause the ultimate injuries. From that evidence, the jury must then determine whether such conduct satisfies the requirement of proximate cause. The fact-finder may allocate as comparative fault only such fault that it finds to have been a proximate cause of the claimed injuries. And if the fault of more than one actor is found to have been a proximate cause of the claimed injuries, the fact-finder, in its allocation of comparative fault, may consider the relative degree of proximate causation attributable to each of the responsible actors.

While a jury in a crash-worthiness case may receive evidence of the plaintiff's conduct alleged to have contributed to cause the claimed injuries, the issue of whether such conduct constitutes proximate cause of the injuries for which damages are sought is typically a matter for the jury to determine in its evaluation of comparative fault.

California's Supreme Court ruled late last month that consumers who purchase a product allegedly as a result of misleading advertising can sue the manufacturer even in the absence of traditional injury, despite enactment of a recent ballot proposition that was designed to stiffen injury requirements and limit standing under the state's unfair competition and false advertising laws. Kwikset Corp. v. Superior Court, No. S171845, 2011 WL 240278 (Cal. Jan. 27, 2011).

Readers have seen our posts about the danger of plaintiffs' misuse of state consumer fraud acts and unfair and deceptive practices acts. Partially in response to such abuse, a few years back the voters of California passed Proposition 64, which substantially revised the state's unfair competition and false advertising laws by beefing up standing and injury requirements for suits by private individuals. The initiative declared: “It is the intent of the California voters in enacting this act to prohibit private attorneys from filing lawsuits for unfair competition where they have no client who has been injured in fact under the standing requirements of the United States Constitution.” Specifically, Proposition 64 also restricted standing to consumers who can allege they have suffered “injury in fact” and have “lost money or property” as a result of the defendant's improper business practice. The plain import of this is that a plaintiff now must demonstrate some form of economic injury -- the issue is what form.

Plaintiff James Benson brought suit against Kwikset Corp. challenging the company's “Made in U.S.A.” labeling of lock sets that allegedly contain foreign-made parts or involved foreign manufacture. Specifically, plaintiff alleged that Kwikset falsely marketed as “Made in USA” locksets that contained screws or pins made in Taiwan or that were assembled in Mexico. Plaintiff prevailed in the trial court, on injunctive relief, but lost on the restitution claim. While cross-appeals were pending, Proposition 64 took effect. The lower courts gave plaintiff an opportunity to plead standing based on injury under the new Prop standing requirements of injury in fact and loss of money or property. The amended complaint then alleged that plaintiff relied on Kwikset’s representations in deciding to purchase the locks, and that he supposedly would not have purchased the locksets if they were not labeled “Made in the USA.” On appeal, the court of appeals vacated the decision in light of the standing issues in the wake of the new law. The court found that the plaintiffs (new plaintiffs had been added) had alleged “injury in fact,” but they had not alleged “loss of money or property” because they got perfectly functioning locksets in return for their money, and they were not overpriced or defective. Plaintiffs therefore received the benefit of the bargain.

The state Supreme Court agreed to hear the appeal, specifically to address the new standing requirements and what constitutes “loss of money or property” under California’s unfair competition law (Business and Professions Code section 17200 et seq. (the UCL)) and the false advertising law (Business and Professions Code section 17500 et seq.).

The state high court held that plaintiffs who allege they are deceived by a product’s label and thus purchase a product that they would not have purchased otherwise have “lost money or property” as required by Proposition 64 and have standing. The court somehow concluded that such an individual does not receive the “benefit of the bargain” even if the product is not overpriced or defective, and works just fine. The Supreme Court concluded that “labels matter.” For each consumer who relies on the truth and accuracy of a label and is deceived by misrepresentations into making a purchase, the economic harm is the same: the consumer has purchased a product that he or she paid more for than he or she otherwise might have been willing to pay if the product had been labeled accurately, said the court. This economic harm -the "loss of real dollars from a consumer's pocket" -is the same whether or not a court might objectively view the products as functionally equivalent. If a party has alleged or proven a personal, individualized loss of money or property in any non-trivial amount, he or she has also alleged or proven injury in fact.

The majority worried that to deny such consumers standing would bring an end to private consumer enforcement regarding label misrepresentations. Instead, this unfortunate decision may well encourage frivolous and contrived class action litigation by plaintiffs who have not suffered any type of quantifiable economic loss -- exactly what the voters voted to curtail.

The dissent correctly noted that the majority's ruling directly contravened the both the intent of Prop 64 and the express language of the amendment. Indeed Proposition 64 was an effort to curb suits just like this one (which was mentions in the campaign), in which plaintiff got the benefit of their bargain. In direct contravention of the electorate's intent, the majority disregarded the express language of the amendment and arguably made it easier for a plaintiff to achieve standing under the UCL. Lost money cannot refer to every time a consumer pays for something, because then every consumer would always have standing to challenge every transaction, and how could Proposition 64 be seen as a new restriction on standing? Loss of money is not the same as any economic injury. Lost money or property is a subset, one form of, economic injury. Not all economic injuries include lost money as the statute uses the term; the majority effectively rendered one of the two statutory requirements redundant and a nullity.

By delving into the subjective motivation of the plaintiff ("labels matter"), the court ignored the focus of the statute not on subjective intent of the buyer, but objective proof of actual loss of property versus no such loss.

In focusing on the fact that the plaintiffs paid for the items, the majority ignored the fact that plaintiffs received the locksets in return, which were not alleged to be overpriced or otherwise defective. Aside from paying the purchase price of the locksets, plaintiffs have not alleged they actually “lost” any money or property. The majority simply concluded there was a loss of real dollars, but there was no such allegation of such a loss here, where plaintiffs simply paid the purchase price for the mislabeled but otherwise fully functional locksets. Plaintiffs did not allege that the locksets were worth less or were of lesser quality or were defective, and the majority's holding apparently does not require that plaintiffs allege any price differential.

We have commented on the growing and alarming trend of plaintiffs' lawyers concocting consumer fraud class action claims against products, even when consumers were not injured and got basically what they paid for, because of some alleged ambiguity in the label or old-fashioned puffing.

Snapple Beverage Corporation was founded in New York’s Greenwich Village in 1972. Snapple began selling and marketing its teas and juice drinks in the late 1980s. In marketing its beverages, Snapple focused on, among other things, flavor, innovation, and humor. Snapple became known for its quirky personality and funny advertising, as well as its colorful product labels and beverage names. For instance, Snapple’s television advertisements featured, among other things, Snapple bottles dressed in wigs and hats, singing in a Backstreet-esque “boy-band,” running with the bulls (hamsters with cardboard horns) in Spain, and performing synchronized swimming.

When Snapple entered the beverages market in the late 1980s, it avoided putting preservatives, which were then commonly found in some similar beverages, in its teas and juice drinks. Snapple was able to do so by using a “hot-fill” process, which uses high-temperature heat pasteurization to preserve products immediately before bottling. Snapple also used 16-ounce glass bottles instead of aluminum cans or plastic. Hence the term on their label "All Natural."

From their inception, Snapple’s beverages were sweetened with high fructose corn syrup. HFCS is made from corn ( a natural product last time we checked), and its primary constituents are glucose and fructose, the sugars that comprise table sugar and honey (which also sound pretty natural). It is undisputed that Snapple disclosed the inclusion of HFCS in the ingredient list that appears on the label of every bottle of Snapple that was labeled “All Natural.”

Readers may recall from our previous post, that here plaintiffs sued seeking to represent a nationwide class of consumers who made purchases between 2001 and 2009 in New York of Snapple beverages labeled “all natural” and which contained high fructose corn syrup. The plaintiffs alleged they paid a premium for the company's drinks as a result of the all natural claim.

Judge Cote denied the plaintiffs' motion for class certification last year, finding that plaintiffs had not proposed a suitable methodology for establishing the critical elements of causation and injury on a class-wide basis. Without a reliable methodology, plaintiffs had not shown that they could prove at trial, using common evidence, that putative class members in fact paid a premium for the beverage. Because individualized inquiries as to causation, injury, and damages for each of the millions of putative class members would predominate over any issues of law or fact common to the class, plaintiffs’ claim could not be certified under Rule 23(b)(3).

Snapple then moved for summary judgment on the two named plaintiffs' individual claims
under New York's consumer protection laws, as well as claims of unjust enrichment and breach of express warranty.

Jurisdiction was predicated on CAFA, so a preliminary issue was whether the court retained jurisdiction after the denial of class certification. The statute does not speak directly to
the issue of whether class certification is a prerequisite to federal jurisdiction, and the Second Circuit has not addressed the issue. The circuits that have considered the issue, however, have uniformly concluded that federal jurisdiction under CAFA does not depend on class certification. See Cunningham Charter Corp. v. Learjet, Inc., 592 F.3d 805, 806 (7th Cir. 2010); United Steel, Paper & Forestry, Rubber, Mfg., Energy, Allied Indus. & Serv. Workers Int’l Union, AFL-CIO, CLC
v. Shell Oil Co., 602 F.3d 1087, 1092 (9th Cir. 2010); Vega v. T-Mobile USA, Inc., 564 F.3d 1256, 1268 n.12 (11th Cir. 2009).

The court granted the motion, finding that the named plaintiffs had failed to show that they were injured as a result of Snapple's labeling. According to Snapple, because the plaintiffs had not offered evidence showing either the price they paid for Snapple or the prices charged by competitors for comparable beverages, they could not demonstrate that they paid a premium for the “All Natural” Snapple product and thus could not show harm stemming from the allegedly misleading label. Neither of the plaintiffs had any record of his purchases of Snapple. Their most recent purchases were made in 2005 and 2007, or 3 to 5 years before their deposition testimony was taken. Not surprisingly, they had only vague recollections of the locations, dates, and prices of their purchases of Snapple. Besides being unable to establish the actual price they paid for the Snapple products at issue here, the plaintiffs have offered no other evidence from which to
calculate the premium they paid for Snapple. The court agreed that plaintiffs failed to prove that they paid more for Snapple's products than they would have for comparable beverages.

As for the breach of expressed warranty claim, an injured party is entitled to the benefit of its bargain, measured as the difference between the value of the product as warranted by the manufacturer and its true value at the time of the transaction. Because the plaintiffs
had not demonstrated that they purchased Snapple's drinks in reliance on the “all natural”
label, they could not show any such difference in value.

Plaintiffs have failed in a proposed class action against McDonald's in which they alleged that the food company's advertising somehow misleads customers into believing that they can eat fast food daily without any potential health consequences. Pelman v. McDonald's Corp., No. 02-civ-07821 (S.D.N.Y. 10/27/10). Yes, loyal readers, you read that correctly: the claim is that the people of New York only know about fast food what they read in (or into) ads.

Plaintiffs in this action were New York State consumers claiming, pursuant to Section 349 of New York’s General Business Law, injury from defendant McDonald’s Corporation’s allegedly deceptive marketing scheme. Plaintiffs claimed that the effect of defendant’s marketing – from 1985 until the filing of this case in 2002 – was to mislead consumers into falsely believing that defendant’s food products can be consumed on a daily basis without incurring any adverse health effects. They alleged that, as a result of this marketing scheme, class members suffered injury. Specifically, plaintiffs alleged that defendant attempted to mislead plaintiffs and putative class members with misleading nutritional claims, in widespread advertising campaigns, that its foods were healthy, nutritious, of a beneficial nutritional nature, and/or were easily part of anyone’s healthy daily diet, each and/or all claims supposedly being in contradiction to medically and nutritionally established acceptable guidelines. Plaintiffs claimed that they suffered injury in the form of the financial costs of defendant’s products; “false beliefs and understandings" as to the nutritional content and effects of defendant’s food products, and physical injuries in the nature of obesity, elevated levels of cholesterol, pediatric diabetes, high blood pressure, etc.

Plaintiffs moved for class certification pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3). The court "begins and ends" its analysis of class certification with consideration of the predominance requirement of Rule 23(b)(3). The court concluded that establishment of the causation and injury elements of plaintiffs’ claims would necessitate extensive individualized inquiries; the questions of law and fact which would be common to putative class members would not predominate over questions affecting only individual members. Accordingly, certification of this action for class litigation under Rule 23(b)(3) was not appropriate.

The court found that the focus was on whether the elements of plaintiffs’ cause of action under GBL § 349 may be established by common, class-wide proof. The court had earlier in the case ruled that in accordance with GBL § 349’s requirement that plaintiffs’ injuries be "by reason of" defendant’s conduct, the plaintiffs had be aware of the nutritional scheme they alleged to have been deceptive, and that the injuries that were suffered by each plaintiff were by reason of defendant’s alleged deceptive marketing. However, allegations of “false beliefs and understandings” did not state a claim for actual injury under GBL § 349. Neither did allegations of pecuniary loss for the purchase of defendant’s products. (In some states that kind of "the product worked and didn't harm me but I wouldn't have purchased it" argument does fly.)

Accordingly, the only alleged injuries for which putative class members could claim damages under GBL § 349 were those related to the development of certain medical conditions; and the causal connection, if any, for those kinds of injuries depended heavily on a range of factors
unique to each individual. Defendant’s nutritional expert concluded there are many factors that contribute to obesity and to obesity-related illnesses, and thus it is improper to generalize and make assumptions as to causation in any individual. Many foods, not just defendant's, are high in fat, salt, and cholesterol, low in fiber and certain vitamins, and contain beef and cheese, and there is no evidence to suggest that all who consume such foods develop the kinds of medical conditions which were at issue in this case.

Moreover, whether or not plaintiffs’ claims (that they ate McDonald’s food because they believed it to be healthier than it was in fact) are true for any particular person was an inquiry which also required individualized proof. A person’s choice to eat at McDonald’s and what foods (and how much) he eats may depend on taste, past experience, habit, convenience, location, peer
choices, other non-nutritional advertising, and cost, etc.

Plaintiffs also argued for issue classes, asserting that the 1) existence; 2) consumer-orientation; and 3) materially misleading nature of the marketing scheme alleged by plaintiffs were each
questions which could be settled upon a showing of objective evidence and legal argument. Even if true, the court noted that all elements of the class action rule have to be met even for issue classes. Named plaintiffs did not present any specific evidence about the number of other persons within the relevant age group who were exposed to the nutritional marketing at issue, then regularly ate at McDonald’s, and subsequently developed the same medical injuries as those allegedly suffered by named plaintiffs. So they hadn't even shown numerosity.

Last week, a federal appeals court vacated a $926 million judgment against Rockwell International and Dow Chemical over alleged plutonium contamination. See Cook v. Rockwell International Corp., No. 08-1224 (10th Cir., 9/3/10).

The owners of properties near the former Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant (“Rocky Flats”) filed a proposed class action against the facility’s operators under the Price-Anderson Act, alleging trespass and nuisance claims arising from the alleged release of plutonium particles onto their properties. Rocky Flats, located near Denver, Colorado, was established by the US in the 1950s to produce nuclear weapon components. The government contracted with Dow to operate the facility from 1952 to 1975, and then with Rockwell from 1975 to 1989.

Some radiation cases seem to last longer than the half-life of uranium. The complaint here was filed in 1990. A class was certified in 1993. After over fifteen years of litigation, the district court conducted a jury trial between October, 2005 and January, 2006, resulting in a jury verdict in favor of the plaintiff class, which numbered about 15,000.

This appeal ensued, and a main issue was the jury instructions (we leave for another day the preemption and PAA statutory issues). In accordance with the district court’s construction of Colorado law, the jury instructions did not require plaintiffs to establish either an actual injury to their properties or a loss of use of their properties. With respect to the nuisance claims, the district court instructed the jury that plaintiffs could establish defendants’ conduct interfered with the use and enjoyment of the class properties by proving defendants’ conduct exposed plaintiffs to “some increased risk of health problems” or caused conditions “that pose a demonstrable risk of future harm" to their property area. As to plaintiffs’ trespass claims, the district court instructed the jury that plaintiffs were not required to show that plutonium is present on the class members' properties at any particular level or concentration, that they suffered any bodily harm because of the plutonium, or that the presence of plutonium damaged these properties in some other way.

First, the nuisance theory. Under Colorado law, a plaintiff asserting a nuisance claim must establish an interference with the use and enjoyment of his property that is both “substantial” and “unreasonable.” A jury may find the presence of radioactive contamination creates an actual risk to health and thereby interferes with a plaintiff’s use or enjoyment of his land if the contamination disturbs the plaintiff’s comfort and convenience, including his peace of mind, with respect to his continued use of the land. But, said the court, a scientifically unfounded risk cannot rise to the level of an unreasonable and substantial interference. To the extent plaintiffs here relied on anxiety from an increased risk to their health as an interference with the use and enjoyment of their properties, that anxiety must arise from scientifically verifiable evidence regarding the risk and cannot be wholly irrational. No reasonable jury could find that irrational anxiety about a risk that cannot be scientifically verified tips this balance so as to render the interference "unreasonable." So the charge was wrong to the extent it permitted any subjective anxiety to suffice for an unreasonable interference.

The court of appeals then turned to the trespass theory. And here, the issue turned on whether the plaintiffs' claim was a traditional trespass theory or a so-called "intangible trespass." The parties agreed that to prevail under a traditional trespass claim, a plaintiff must establish only a physical intrusion upon the property of another without the proper permission from the person legally entitled to possession. A plaintiff need not establish any injury to his legally protected interest in the land or damage to the land itself. Unlike a traditional trespass claim, however, the court made clear that an intangible trespass claim requires an aggrieved party to prove physical damage to the property caused by such intangible intrusion.

So is the invasion of plutonium particles onto real property a traditional or intangible trespass claim? The cases suggest that “intangible” is something that is impalpable, or incapable of being felt by touch. Noise intrusion and electromagnetic fields emitted by power lines are examples of the intangible. Neither can be perceived by any of the senses. Here, plaintiffs had to concede that the plutonium particles allegedly present on their properties are impalpable and imperceptible by the senses. Although the particles in question have mass and are "physically present" on the land, because the particles are impalpable, the trespass alleged here must be tried as an intangible trespass.

Consequently, the instructions on this point were also in error, and on remand, plaintiffs will be required to prove the plutonium contamination caused “physical damage to the property” in order to prevail on their trespass claims.

Interestingly, because the district court’s class certification analysis failed to consider whether
plaintiffs could establish various elements of their claims, properly defined, the 10th Circuit also reversed the district court’s class certification ruling. Upon remand, the district court will have to revisit the class certification question to determine whether plaintiffs can establish the proper elements of their claims on a class-wide basis. Obviously, the need to show unreasonable interference and physical damage may each create predominating individual issues.

Specifically, plaintiffs alleged that the defendants failed to disclose that their products contain probable carcinogens, other unsafe contaminants, and/or ingredients that have not been shown to be safe. Plaintiffs further contended that defendants deceived consumers by affirmatively misrepresenting the safety of their products. Plaintiffs averred that they purchased the products for use on their young children, and contended that, had defendants disclosed the contaminants in their children’s products and the fact that all ingredients were not "proven safe," they would not
have purchased the products at all.

To evidence the alleged hazards, plaintiffs cited a press release and a report entitled “No More Toxic Tub,” both of which were published by an extremist anti-business group, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. In the report, the Campaign points to trace amounts of chemicals such as formaldehyde allegedly in defendants’ products.

They sued for alleged violations of California’s false advertising statute, Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code §§ 17500, et seq.; California’s Unfair Competition Law (UCL), Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code §§ 17200, et seq.; and California’s Consumer Legal Remedies Act (CLRA), Cal. Civ. Code §§ 1750, et seq.; and
various other state unfair and deceptive trade practices acts, as well as making common law claims for misrepresentation; fraud; and breach of warranties. Plaintiffs noted they intended to move for certification of a nationwide class and various subclasses.

Defendants filed a motion to dismiss. They first argued that plaintiffs did not have standing to sue
because they cannot show that they have suffered a concrete, actual injury-in-fact. Plaintiffs responded that they pleaded two injuries sufficient to confer standing: “(1) risk of harm to their children resulting from their exposure to carcinogenic baby bath products; and (2) economic harm resulting from the purchase of these contaminated, defective bath products.”

The court rejected this plaintiff argument, noting that plaintiffs did not cite controlling authority that the “risk of harm” injury employed to establish standing in traditional environmental cases in some states applies equally to what is, at base, a product liability action. To the extent that an increased risk of harm could constitute an injury-in-fact in a product liability case such as this one, in any event, plaintiffs would have to at lease plead a credible or substantial threat to their health or that of their children to establish their standing to bring suit. But plaintiffs did not allege such a threat. They made general statements about the alleged toxicity of various chemicals, but did not allege that the amounts of the substances allegedly in defendants’ products have caused harm or create a credible or substantial risk of harm. {Fundamental principle of toxicology - dose matters.} Plaintiffs did not plead facts sufficient to show that a palpable risk exists. In fact, plaintiffs' own pleading noted that the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has stated that, although the presence of certain chemicals “is cause for concern,” the CPSC is merely continuing “to monitor its use in consumer products.” Seemed a far cry from substantial risk.

The court found this case analogous to Koronthaly v. L’Oreal USA, Inc., 2008 WL 2938045 (D.N.J.), aff’d, 2010 WL 1169958 (3d Cir. 2010), which we posted on before, and which was dismissed on standing grounds. There, the plaintiff was a regular user of the defendants’ lipstick, which, according to another report by the same Campaign group, contained lead. The plaintiff alleged that she had been injured “by mere exposure to lead-containing lipstick and by her increased risk of being poisoned by lead.” However, she did not complain of any current injuries. The district court concluded, and the Third Circuit affirmed, that the plaintiff’s allegations of future injury
were “too remote and abstract to qualify as a concrete and particularized injury.” Id. at *5.

The court here also held that the various counts failed to state a claim. For example the fraud-related claims failed to plead, as required by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b), “the who, what, when, where, and how of the alleged fraud.” See Vess v. Ciba-Geigy Corp. USA, 317 F.3d 1097, 1106 (9th Cir. 2003). While plaintiffs tried to argue that their consumer fraud act claims are different from common law fraud, the Ninth Circuit has held that Rule 9(b) applied to a plaintiff’s claims under the CLRA and UCL when they were grounded in fraud. Also, plaintiffs did not not plead the circumstances in which they were exposed to the alleged false statements. Nor did they plead which of these alleged misrepresentations they relied on in making their purchase of products. Again, plaintiffs cited In re Tobacco II Cases, 46 Cal. 4th 298 (2009), to argue that they were not required to allege which representations they specifically saw. That case was factually distinguishable on many grounds. And, in any event, to the extent In re Tobacco II provides that to establish UCL standing, reliance need not be proved through exposure to particular advertisements under some unique factual circumstance, the case does not stand for, nor could it stand for, a general relaxation of the pleading requirements under Federal Rule 9(b).

Similarly, plaintiffs made the general allegation that defendants engaged in unfair business acts or practices but did not allege facts suggesting that consumers have suffered an injury based on the defendants’ alleged conduct. Thus, for the same reasons they lacked Article III standing, they failed to state a claim for those types of claims as well.

Plaintiff, Rule, purchased two doses of ProHeart 6, a medicine for preventing heartworm in dogs, and had them administered to her dog Luke. She later filed a putative class action against Wyeth, alleging that defendant had sold ProHeart 6 without disclosing safety concerns revealed in initial testing and in subsequent use. She alleged these concerns ultimately led Wyeth to recall the product at the FDA's request. According to plaintiff, adverse reactions were suffered by dogs after receiving ProHeart 6 during trials and in general use after the product was released. Importantly, the class representative conceded that Luke had not suffered any harm from the drug, and that Luke had not developed heartworm while using the drug.

Plaintiff's first cause of action was based on breach of the implied warranty of merchantability and the other based on the state consumer fraud statute, Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 93A. For damages on these two counts, Rule asserted that she and others similarly situated were entitled to the difference between the price they actually paid for ProHeart 6 and what it would have been worth had safety risks been adequately disclosed; for the chapter 93A count, she sought statutory damages if greater than actual damages and also trebling of damages.

On the warranty count, the alleged unmerchantability (unfitness for ordinary use) of ProHeart 6 lay in its potential for causing harm to a dog. Rule conceded, however, that neither of the two doses injured Luke. So, while the sale to Rule may have been of an "unfit" drug, its unfitness did not give rise to any injury to Rule against which the warranty was designed to guard. Nor did she suggest that Luke became more susceptible to injury, as might be the case where one bought and installed a defective car tire that has not yet run its life. Recovery generally is not available under the warranty of merchantability where the defect that made the product unfit caused no injury to the claimant, the threat is gone, and nothing now possessed by the claimant has been lessened in value.

On the consumer fraud count, the act provides a cause of action for a plaintiff who has been injured by unfair or deceptive acts or practices. In Rule's view, she purchased Proheart 6 because of a deception (failure to disclose the risk), the product was “in reality” worth less than she paid for it (because of that undisclosed risk), and so she suffered damage measured by the difference between what she paid and what she would have paid if the risk had been disclosed. One problem with plaintiff's scenario was that she also alleged that had the risks been known, ProHeart 6 could not be sold at all, given FDA requirements.

But even assuming otherwise, Rule's suit was brought after her purchases and use of the drug, and she admitted that she got both the protection and convenience she sought and that the risk did not manifest itself in injury to her or her dog. Nor was she still holding a product that was worth less than she paid for it; she used the product up entirely and in fact suffered no economic injury at all. Indeed, her theory would not be adopted by deceived buyers whose dogs were actually injured or killed; they could seek not some modest reduction in price but the full cost of added veterinary bills and, if the dog died, its value.

So to the extent chapter 93A injury requires that a plaintiff who seeks to recover show “real” economic damages, Rule did not qualify. If, instead, a different notion of injury had sufficed - such as injury as a violation of some abstract “right” like the right not to be subject to a deceptive act that happened to cause no economic harm - then she would arguably have had a claim under chapter 93A and perhaps could obtain statutory damages. The First Circuit observed some "tension" in the language used as between the earlier and the later state SJC decisions on the statute and especially where deception and risk are involved. However, said the court of appeals, the most recent SJC cases on point appear to have reaffirmed the notion that injury under chapter 93A means economic injury in the traditional sense.

Finally, the First Circuit addressed plaintiffs' typical policy-based argument that deceptive conduct needs to be deterred through a class action. While the alleged conduct such as that attributed to defendant needs to be deterred, that need not necessarily come from those who bought the product but were not injured. It could be deterred by those with actual injury.

Among the topics covered were many of the basic MDL structural issues, including the proposed structure and roles of designated counsel. The parties recommended 18 attorneys to serve in leadership positions. More than 80 law firms and attorneys had filed applications by the May 3rd deadline to serve as lead counsel or in some other leadership role in this MDL.

The plaintiffs' attorneys also recommended establishment of a core discovery committee led by the co-lead counsel for the two types of cases, personal injury and economic loss. Plaintiffs’ outlined their Core Discovery (types of information and documents, and types of discovery). Proposed core discovery included: (i) Floor Mat, (ii) Pedal, and (iii) Electronic Throttle systems issues. Plaintiffs' core discovery includes probing allegations of the existence of a defect in Toyota vehicles responsible for alleged sudden unintended acceleration; and the design and manufacture process for the engine throttle control system (including pedals, floor mats, electronic control systems, accelerator pedals, throttle bodies, etc.). They also outlined proposed document discovery, as far back as the 1990s, claiming that design of that system began in the 1990s and that it was put in place in some vehicles as early as model year 1998.

Similarly, defendants outlined their proposed discovery in personal injury cases and economic loss cases. A key issue for them is the preservation of the vehicles in testable condition.

The parties offered a brief statement of the facts and legal issues, including class certification issues, standing issues, the application of the economic loss rule, choice of law, and the statute of limitations. Defendants’ specifically requested coordination with state court proceedings. There are now reportedly about 100 cases in 22 states.

Toyota has previously announced that it had retained an outside engineering and scientific consulting firm to conduct a comprehensive, independent analysis of Toyota and Lexus vehicles using the ETCS-i system (Electronic Throttle Control System with intelligence) for concerns related to unintended acceleration.

Toyota has provided members of Congress with an interim, first phase report from this expert on its evaluation of the ETCS-i system, consistent with the company’s commitment to transparency regarding the quality and safety of its vehicles

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has affirmed the decision. Koronthaly v. L'Oreal USA, No. 08-4625 (3d Cir. 3/26/10).

Koronthaly purchased lipstick products manufactured, marketed, and distributed by appellees L’Oreal. and P&G. She alleged these lipstick products contained lead. The FDA does not regulate the presence of lead in lipstick, but Koronthaly asserted that the lipstick contained lead in greater amounts than permitted in candy by the FDA. Koronthaly alleged that she did not know when she purchased the products that they contained any lead, and when she learned of the lead content she immediately stopped using them. Moreover, had she known of the lead she claims she would not have purchased the products.

To prove constitutional standing, said the court of appeals, a plaintiff must demonstrate (1) an injury-in fact that is actual or imminent and concrete and particularized, not conjectural or hypothetical, (2) that is fairly traceable to the defendant’s challenged conduct, and (3) is likely to be redressed by a favorable judicial decision. Summers v. Earth Island Inst., 129 S. Ct. 1142, 1149 (2009). In this case, standing foundered on the first requirement, injury-in-fact, said the court.

Koronthaly’s argument that she was misled into purchasing unsafe lipstick products was belied by an FDA report finding that the lead levels in the defendants’ lipsticks were not dangerous and therefore did not require warnings. Moreover, Koronthaly conceded that she has suffered no adverse health effects from using the lipsticks. Koronthaly therefore had to fall back on only a subjective allegation -- that the trace amounts of lead in the lipsticks were unacceptable to her, not an injury-in-fact sufficient to confer Article III standing. See Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 564 (1992)(injury-in-fact must be accompanied by “continuing, present adverse effects”); Georgine v. Amchem Prods., Inc., 83 F.3d 610, 636 (3d Cir. 1996) (Wellford, J., concurring) (“Fear and apprehension about a possible future physical or medical consequence . . . is not enough to establish an injury in fact.”).

Furthermore, to the extent that Koronthaly contended that the injury-in-fact was the loss of her “benefit of the bargain,” she mistakenly relied on contract law, said the court. See Rivera v. Wyeth-Ayerst Labs., 283 F.3d 315, 319-21 (5th Cir. 2002) (plaintiff, whose only claim was that she “would like her money back” for having purchased a product that failed to make certain disclosures and allegedly was defective, did not have an injury-in-fact sufficient to create standing). Her lipstick purchases were not made pursuant to a contract involving lead levels, and therefore she could not have been denied the benefit of any bargain. Absent any allegation that she received a product that failed to work for its intended purpose or was worth objectively less than what one could reasonably expect, Koronthaly had not demonstrated a concrete injury-in-fact.

The dismissal was affirmed. In the lipstick wars, attention now will focus on Stella v. LVMH Perfumes and Cosmetics USA Inc., N.D. Ill., No. 1:07-cv-06509, dismissed 4/3/09; which is currently on appeal before the Seventh Circuit.

Readers of MassTortDefense recognize that one feature of the asbestos litigation is the co-called family or household exposure case, a form of by-stander liability in which the plaintiff alleges he or she contracted asbestos disease not from exposures at work but through contact with a family member who brings the fibers home from a job.

A recent case explores this situation in a non-asbestos context. In Oddone v. The Superior Court of Los Angeles County, 2009 WL 4044429 (Cal. Ct. App., 11/24/09), James Oddone worked for Technicolor, Inc., from 1973 until 2006; he died from a brain tumor (glioblastoma multiforme) in January 2007. His wife, inter alia, asserted on her own behalf the theory that her husband brought home toxic vapors and chemicals on his clothing and person and that she was injured by exposure to these materials; this cause of action was predicated on Technicolor's alleged negligence in exposing her husband to toxic chemicals.

Most claims of this type are analyzed, at first, with a duty analysis. Here, the defendant argued, and the lower court agreed, there was no duty to the wife, using the traditional duty factors, including whether transaction was intended to affect the plaintiff; the foreseeability of harm to the plaintiff; the degree of certainty that the plaintiff suffered injury; the closeness of the connection between the defendant's conduct and the injury suffered; the moral blame attached to the defendant's conduct; and the policy of preventing future harm.

The court of appeals did agree with the proposition that this was the exact analytical framework for the case. Rather, the major factors ought to be ones are the foreseeability of harm to the plaintiff, the degree of certainty that the plaintiff suffered injury, the closeness of the connection between the defendant's conduct and the injury suffered, the moral blame attached to the defendant's conduct, the policy of preventing future harm, the extent of the burden to the defendant and consequences to the community of imposing a duty to exercise care with resulting liability for breach, and the availability, cost, and prevalence of insurance for the risk involved.

In order to apply those factors, however, a plaintiff claiming to have been injured by an exposure to chemicals must specify the chemical that caused the injury and in the course of doing so must of course also specify the injury. Importantly, he must also allege that as a result of the exposure the specified toxin entered his body. The court said it does not make a difference that the plaintiff is claiming injury as a result of secondary exposure. If anything, the exposure requirements are even more apropos in such a case because the connection between the defendant's acts and the claimed injury is more attenuated than in a primary exposure context.

"It cannot be denied that a case predicated on secondary exposure to chemicals potentially cuts a very wide swath," said the court of appeals. It is therefore only appropriate to pay close attention to the factor that there must be a close connection between the defendant's conduct and the injury suffered. That connection is only shown by setting forth specifically which chemicals cause which specified injuries. In a secondary exposure case, the allegation that as a result of the exposure the specified chemical entered the plaintiff's body is of particular importance. Central issues in such a case are whether secondary exposure to a specified chemical is even possible and, if it is, whether the exposure will result in the ingestion of the chemical into the plaintiff's body.

Turning to policy issues, the court did not hold that a plaintiff cannot ever state a cause of action for secondary exposure to toxic chemicals. But, as part of the analysis, including “all family members” into the category of those owed a duty would be too broad, as not all family members will be in constant and personal contact with the employee. Limiting the class to spouses would be at once too narrow and too broad, as others may be in contact with the employee and spouses may not invariably be in contact with the employee. Limiting the class to those persons who have frequent and personal contact with employees leaves at large the question what “frequent” and “personal” really means. The gist of the matter is that imposing a duty toward non-employee persons saddles the defendant employer with a burden of uncertain but potentially very large scope. One of the consequences to the community of such an extension is the cost of insuring against liability of unknown but potentially massive dimension. Ultimately, such costs are borne by the consumer.

Here, the court of appeals could not say that the trial court abused its discretion in sustaining the demurrer to the first amended complaint without leave to amend.

Defendants have moved to dismiss the complaint in a proposed class action by parents claiming that the makers of shampoos and and soaps for kids failed to list toxic chemicals on product ingredients lists. Vercellono, et al. v. Gerber Products Co., et al., No. 2:09-cv-02350 (D.N.J.).

The plaintiffs are seeking compensatory, punitive and/or exemplary damages for the proposed class, which is defined as all consumers nationwide who purchased the products in question. Plaintiffs allege that the companies violated consumer fraud statutes by making or distributing baby care products specifically marketed for sensitive skin despite containing the chemicals, and misrepresented that the products they marketed, distributed, promoted, sold, and/or made were safe for children.

Defendants' motions attack several aspects of the complaint, including the injury allegations in connection with the consumer fraud count. The motion illustrates one of the key battlegrounds in a consumer fraud class action. While plaintiffs typically assert that the predominating issues are common, defendants will point to the injury element under the statute as requiring individual proof. But before even deciding the class issues, the question is raised whether plaintiffs have adequately alleged an injury. Often, they will seek to avoid suggestion of personal physical injury, because of the individual issues it raises. But there is risk in going too far.

According to the Gerber motion, plaintiffs suffered only mere exposure to the chemicals and failed to cite any actual injury. The complaint fails to allege that plaintiffs, their children, or anyone else has ever suffered any actual harm as a result of using the products. Nor does the complaint allege that the products failed to perform as a bath product. Rather, the complaint merely alleges that plaintiffs have suffered “exposure” to formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane. While they assert that they were injured by paying the purchase prices for the defendants’ products, under the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act, as under many such acts, plaintiffs are required to allege that they have suffered an ascertainable loss, and allegations of economic loss are insufficient, as are allegations of the vague potential of a speculative future injury.

The Fifth Circuit has affirmed a trial court decision that a group of space center workers in Mississippi cannot pursue personal injury claims for their alleged exposure to beryllium-containing products because they could not show any “compensable injury.” Paz v. Brush Engineered Materials Inc., 2009 WL 73874 (5th Cir. 2009).

Pursuant to Mississippi law, claims of negligence, products liability, and breach of warranty all require an identifiable injury. Plaintiffs alleged that they had beryllium sensitization (BeS), i.e., an increased sensitivity to the potentially toxic substance. According to their expert, BeS is by definition the demonstration of an abnormal immune response to beryllium, usually, though not always based on an abnormal challenge test.

The issue was whether the BeS was a compensable injury pursuant to Mississippi law. The employees argued BeS is a present injury and “the beginning of an actual disease process,” specifically the beginning stage of Chronic Beryllium Disease; therefore there is a reasonable probability of future consequences from BeS. Plaintiff experts’ published work, however, stated that “BeS precedes the formation of … clinical illness.” And it indicates that individuals with BeS exhibit evidence of an immune response to beryllium but have no evidence of lung pathology or impairment. Further, there was no dispute that the rate of progression from BeS to CBD is unknown to any degree of reasonable medical certainty.

The expert evidence from both sides clearly established that excessive exposure to beryllium provokes a physical change in the body, causing BeS. The quintessential issue, said the 5th Circuit, is whether any or every physiologic change in the body rises to the level of compensable injury pursuant to Mississippi law. The federal court found guidance in the state court’s recent decision in this same case on medical monitoring, which we have mentioned before. In answering the 5th Circuit's certified question, the Mississippi Supreme Court stated “a claim for medical monitoring, as Plaintiffs present it, lacks an injury.” 949 So.2d at 3. The Mississippi Supreme Court concluded that because “Mississippi requires the traditional elements of proof in a tort action, it has refused to recognize a category of potential illness actions.” The Mississippi Supreme Court noted “[n]one of the plaintiffs ha[d] suffered physical injury from the alleged exposure.” Pursuant to Mississippi law, “exposure” is “a claim for harm which is not compensable under Mississippi law.”

The sub-clinical and sub-cellular changes, which none of the parties disputed, are akin to what the Mississippi Supreme Court refused to recognize as physical injuries. Thus, the logical conclusion is BeS is not a compensable injury pursuant to Mississippi law. This seems to be the Mississippi Supreme Court's “line in the sand" for a plaintiff's legally protected interest. Summary judgment affirmed.

While states vary on the point, this is an important issue: as medical technology advances, the ability to show some sub-clinical or sub-cellular impact on the body becomes increasingly common. Will every such change, what traditionally has been seen as mere exposure lacking sufficient impact, impairment, symptom, be an injury? Plaintiffs may like to think so in some cases, but won't the single injury rule and statute of limitations bite them in others?

Sean P. Wajert is a partner at Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP. He concentrates his complex litigation practice on the defense of companies from a variety of industries, including the chemical, consumer product, drug and medical device industries. His practice...More...